Project Metis
by pineconeboy
Summary: The members of the Tournament team Dark Phalanx are drawn into a mysterious plot involving the famous gladiator Malcom. FINISHED! With epilogue and evythang. Who's ur daddy?
1. Scene 1

**Scene 1**

_FOOM_

Gorn dove through the portal, the muted thunder of Ivana's shock combo suddenly fading as he was instantly transported to a new, yet familiar location. He shook off the disoriented feeling that always accompanied translocation movement as quickly as possible and ducked to the right of the shimmering portal exit, flak cannon held at the ready, reflexes standing on a hard edge, waiting to trigger if Ivana followed him through. He knew she was too clever to make the mistake of following an opponent immediately through a portal and into an ambush, but a smart fighter would do it occasionally anyways in hopes that their prey would begin to make the assumption that they would never be tailed through a portal. Ivana was a very smart fighter. That was why she was the current leader of his team, the Dark Phalanx, despite Gorn's veteran status. Her tactical aptitude was alarming. Gorn didn't mind at all. He had been in the armed forces for many years and was as used to taking orders as giving them. Besides, they were winning more than ever with her at the helm. He crouched patiently, listening, trying to ignore the bullets embedded in his thigh for just a little longer.

Ivana stood on a ledge near the top of the elevator shaft in the large middle room of Liandri Central Core, watching from her vantage point the portal below, which Gorn had entered a few moments earlier. There were four routes to the minigun and shield belt room, where the portal led and where Gorn was probably still waiting. All of them were narrow and easily defendable from his position. Going directly after him would be unwise, yet if she did nothing he would get the shield belt when it materialized in about twenty seconds. The upper hand in a 1 vs 1 battle such as this usually went to the fighter who could absorb more punishment, and the shield belt gave one the ability to absorb quite a bit of it. Gorn was an armor-centered player - he liked having the best odds possible going into a fight. He could pick up the minigun that sat underneath the shield belt and just whittle her down before she could manage to kill him in any open fight. Gorn might no longer be the acting leader of the Dark Phalanx, but he was their most experienced and skilled warrior, and his strength made him especially lethal with the minigun. Ivana preferred lighter weapons and finesse to take full advantage of her lithe frame and speed, but Gorn just waded in with that big ugly metal stick and chewed his opponents apart.

Still, she had some armor left and no intention of engaging his minigun under any circumstances. Instead, she darted around the elevator shaft and ran towards the other portal, across the room from the one Gorn had taken. She passed it by, grabbing the pulse rifle on the way just for the heck of it and instead making for the stairs that led up to a ledge which had an excellent viewpoint of all four routes Gorn could take back into the main room, as well as a sniper rifle. The shield belt would appear in ten seconds, and Gorn would probably appear soon afterwards. She flicked on her holographic heads-up display, or HUD, eyeing the score and time remaining. 7-6 in Gorn's favor, with 2 minutes left. This had to work.

Gorn heard the faint sound of the pulse rifle being picked up and rose. That was his cue. The arena speakers added synthesized sounds for certain actions, such as using a health pack or picking up a weapon, to add strategic depth to the game and discourage sneaky tactics, which crowds found boring. Ivana was most likely going to head through the portal on the other side of the map to get some armor, then wait in the central room to ambush him after he got the shield belt. Time to resupply.

He loped painfully over to the health packs sitting on the floor near the portal and stepped through them. There was a synthesized chime, and he sighed in relief, savoring the sensation as the burning pain in his thigh cooled and faded. When a health pack was touched, the effect was immediate - wounds disappeared, bones realigned, pain was dulled. It wasn't actually the health packs themselves that did it - they were holographic, and disappeared when touched. The arena did it. Tournament arenas, inside their plain-looking walls and floors, were fitted with little machines that could physically repair injuries in seconds, rebuilding tissue with the basic building blocks of life such as carbon and oxygen and then translocating it precisely into the wound, simultaneously removing damaged regions. When you were injured to an imminently critical point, they would just translocate your entire body to a different part of the arena, remove all your weapons, and add a point to your opponent's score before healing you up again. It wasn't like dying exactly, just a few seconds of agonizing pain. Both technologies - translocation and matter reconstruction - were of alien origin and had been discovered after the Skaarj war, during the massive ensuing expansion into space. Primitive forms were discovered in some far-off planet and adapted as proprietary technology by the New Earth Government. But nobody had figured out yet why your mind wasn't harmed if your brain was damaged... as long as it was rebuilt right away. It was amazing, the capacity of human scientists to make things work without even fully understanding the underlying concepts of what they were doing. Somehow, it just worked... so a new sport had been born.

Restored, Gorn jogged away from the portal, across a glass walkway over a small room. Through the glass below his feet was a sight for sore eyes - his favorite weapon, the minigun. He hopped off the walkway, landing with a fluid grace that belied his size and strength, and picked up the minigun along with some nearby ammo. Wasting no time, he ran into a side corridor and up a ramp that led back to the end of the glass ledge he was on earlier. He arrived just in time to see the air shimmer briefly as the matter reconstructors did their work and a rather innocuous-looking belt appeared. He stepped over it, and it appeared on his waist. A shimmering yellow field of energy immediately surrounded his body. He grinned and ran down the walkway towards the portal, minigun slung easily at his side. Time to take back the central room.

Ivana heard a faint zip as Gorn picked up the shield belt. She crouched on the ledge, looking intently through the rifle's scope at the portal exit. The air shimmered and he appeared. There was no thinking involved as she swept the crosshairs to his head, just the flow of trained muscle-memory and reflexes punctuated by the crack of the rifle as she pulled the trigger. The yellow shield of energy was gone immediately, all its power diverted to stop the high-velocity bullet from putting a hole in Gorn's face. He rolled instinctively to the side, but she kept him in the scope, hearing the click of the gun as it automatically reloaded.

Gorn knew immediately what had happened. A sniper shot to the head typically cancelled the amount of energy stored in a shield belt - in fact; the bullet had actually bounced off his nose, slowed to a nonlethal velocity. There wasn't enough time before that goddamn rifle reloaded to survey the room and find out where she was, but she was probably still on its ledge so he flung himself towards the center of the room, putting the elevator shaft between himself and her location. Another bullet pinged off the cement floor next to his foot, kicking up a tiny cloud of pulverized rock dust, as he dove.

Ivana swore under her breath and put away the sniper rifle, wasting no time. She slipped down off the ledge onto a wide ramp and headed towards a portal, passing by the pulse rifle this time and making a left turn through the portal to the body armor pickup. She ignored the disorientation and walked through the armor, wincing at the loud synthesized clank as it appeared on her body. Gorn surely knew her location now. The tables had turned - she was trapped in a side corridor with only three routes back into the main room, and she had no time to waste - there was less than a minute left. She ran straight back through the portal, grabbing the shock rifle from her pack as she went.

Gorn heard the armor pickup sound and ran straight for the elevator entrance. From the top of the elevator, he would have a clear shot at the portal exit if she tried to go right back through it again. As soon as his feet touched the floor of the lift, it automatically began to rise with a low hiss. He swung his minigun in the direction of the portal and prepared to step out when it reached the top.

The hiss of the elevator reached Ivana's ears just as she cleared the portal, and she shot a ball of energy with the shock rifle's secondary fire to where she knew Gorn would appear, hoping to get a combo off in his face as he exited the lift. But he arrived a moment too soon and saw the slow-moving ball. He flung himself to the right onto the ramp down towards her, and she saw the muzzle of his minigun flash. Bullets sprayed the ledge Ivana stood on, but she held steady and prepared to fire another shock ball.

Gorn saw that Ivana's combo would miss him, so he immediately started firing and got to his feet, correcting his stream of fire and beginning to close on his target. She would be a sieve in a few seconds if she didn't run.

Bullets tore into Ivana's armor, but she held her position and shot another shock ball in front of Gorn. Time slowed to a crawl as she watched their trajectories converge, feeling hot metal tear into her skin but waiting for the right moment. One of her fingers gripping the shock rifle disappeared. A moment later, Gorn finally realized (too late) that he couldn't avoid the combo this time. Ivana caught a glimpse of surprise on his face before she fired a shock primary beam into the ball. It detonated with a bright blue flash and the familiar bone-shaking _FOOM, _and the shockwave flung Gorn´s body sideways into a wall. It disappeared before hitting the floor. Ivana dropped off the pulse rifle ledge to the bottom of the room like a bag of wet cement and dragged herself as quickly as possible over to the health packs near the elevator. She had about three seconds before the matter reconstructors finished with Gorn and he 'respawned'.

There was the usual mind-bending flash of pain as he regained consciousness, and Gorn didn't even stop to survey his surroundings before he started running again. After a step or two he was oriented enough to realize he had spawned in the central room not far from where Ivana fragged him, which often would be terrible luck and lead to losing another point. This time, however, he knew she was seriously injured. He unsheathed his Enforcer pistol and ran towards the health packs that were behind the lift from him, checking his heads-up display as he went. Seven seconds left.

Ivana heard Gorn's footsteps too late. She pivoted and fired a shock ball to the side of the lift, but he was already too close for a combo. He snapped off two quick shots with his Enforcer which slammed into her chest, and the world went black.

Ivana respawned in the minigun room, just in time to hear a voice in her comm equipment say "two... one... zero. You have lost the match!" She smacked her forehead with the heel of her palm and trudged towards the portal. Gorn was on the other side, standing nonchalantly, hands on his hips. "You should have had me with that last combo."

"I didn't hear you respawn."

"You should have anticipated it, that's a common spawn point."

"Gorn, I was in a lot of pain and losing blood rather quickly. It was sort of hard to concentrate on other things."

He slapped her on the shoulder. "But you did great! I never thought you would come that close to beating me in a duel so quickly. That move with the sniper... Excellent unpredictability." He grinned. The gesture, combined with the fact that half his face was built from metal parts and no longer moved when he showed emotion, gave him an unsettling jack-o-lantern appearance. After a few years of knowing him, Ivana had gotten used to it. "Thanks, Gorn. I'm gonna get you one of these days."

He chuckled and shook his head ruefully. "Of that, I have little doubt. It might have been today if we trained someplace less favorable to a brainless minigun turret like myself. But whatever. Wanna get a drink?"

"Already promised Anna I'd go on a run with her tonight. Shouldn't you do some research on your opponent for the exhibition duel tomorrow?"

Gorn's serious demeanor returned. "You're right, I should. I have no intention of losing to a worthless chem-boosted grandstander who doesn't know the meaning of true combat. I'm looking forward to it, actually... Malcom is going to regret taking me on." The grin crept back onto his face. On a normal person, it would have been quite an attractive smile. On Gorn, the proper description would be 'chilling'.


	2. Scene 2

**Scene 2**

A harsh voice crackled across the Thunder Crash's comm line. "Malcom! Check your six!" Malcom swung around just in time to see a translocator beacon loft over the rim of a ledge behind him. He raised his pulse rifle and trained a searing lance of plasma in the direction of the beacon. A hapless member of the Iron Guard translocated directly into the shaft and was roasted in a second. Malcom turned and continued running towards his base, laughing into his comm. "Thanks Riker. Any more on the way?"

"Two spawners, but Aryss and I got 'em."

"Roger that. Flag coming into base!"

He sprinted up the low hill of cinders and blasted rock towards the dark cement structure of his team's base, ignoring the burning sulfur vapors that seared his lungs. Lava Giant wasn't the most pleasant locale for capture the flag games, but it had a certain apocalyptic ambience that fit well as a backdrop to deadly tournament combat. Liandri polls showed that spectator enjoyment increased when competitors fell into the boiling soup of magma that surrounded the island of crustal rock which comprised the arena and burnt to a screaming crisp before respawning. Sure it was a little less fun for the CTF players, but who were they to argue with statistics?

At any rate, Malcom liked Lava Giant as a tournament arena because its characteristics favored his style of play. Young and relatively inexperienced, he was neither a master tactician nor an outstanding team player. But his control with the sniper rifle in the wide open terrain was unmatched at any range, and his young eyes could spot enemy movement through the swirling fumes long before he was himself seen.

Malcom glanced backwards one more time as he neared the base. Nobody had passed the high rock wall that divided the arena in two; Riker and Aryss, apparently, had done their job. Without cover, the enemy defense - which was allowed to launch translocator beams to move more quickly, while a flag carrier was not - could catch up rapidly. This not being the case, Malcom jogged to the massive cement wall, and jumped. Instead of reaching a height of approximately three feet and smacking into the wall, which would have been the only physically possible outcome under normal circumstances, he sailed over the twenty-foot edifice in an eerily natural-looking leap.

------

Hearing Malcolm's ¨Eeeehaw!¨ through his earpiece, Riker snapped his sniper rifle onto his pack and loaded his translocator beam into the compact launching device on his wrist. Obviously Malcom had just cleared the wall. Newbs always got a kick out of using the Jump Boots. Malcom was no freshy, but he still reveled in the experience of Tournament play. It was a game, a sport, an exhilarating competition. He hadn't yet seen the ugly, stinking underbelly of the whole works. Once you learned who was pulling the strings to maximize their own profits while using the gladiators like so much human cattle, once you figured out exactly how ¨negotiable¨ your contract with the tournament board was, it was harder to find any joy in the experience.

Malcom was lucky. He'd entered the Tournament by choice when other alternatives were available. Most competitors were common thugs or court-martialed ex-military who sought to escape the penal mining colonies. Very few ever won their freedom, and Riker no longer held onto such hopes. Here was better than dying slowly of muscular wastage and heart weakening due to the work of mining asteroids full-time in zero gravity, and that was good enough. Malcom could have his damned fun. He deserved it anyhow, as advance compensation for what the Liandri Tournament Board would do to him once his popularity waned. Somewhere in that contract he signed, it said ¨without compensation.¨ It might literally be microscopic (not uncommon these days), but it was there.

¨Riker! The hell you doing?¨

¨Enjoying the lovely afternoon, jackass. Just kidding, I'm killing their defense so you can cap and claim the glory later. You?¨

¨I already capped, newb, and their offense just got the shield belt. Wake up and ventilate Lauren's cute body a little, would you?¨

¨Got it, Red Leader,¨ he replied, and fired his translocator beacon off the central rock wall on which he was positioned. Despite Malcolm's immaturity, Riker liked him. Gladiators with his raw leadership ability were not common.

The beacon bounced on a narrow ridge of tortured black lava rock below - very nicely placed - and Riker punched the ¨translocate¨ button on his wrist launcher, appearing a foot above the rock surface and landing with practiced ease. He quickly translocated twice more up the ridge towards his base, having spotted the shimmering yellow energy field of the shield belt to his left, moving concordantly with a fast, slender figure.

------

Lauren saw Riker coming. She ignored him and fired her translocator towards the base. Killing him now would be a big waste, as he would spawn again inside the base (where she was going) with plenty of weapons nearby. A bullet pinged off the ground to her right - there was probably a defender camping in the sniper nest built into the front wall of the base. She pulled out her shock rifle as she arrived at the wall and sailed upwards, aided by the miniature jet power of the Jump Boots. In midair, Lauren fired a shock ball towards the inside parapet of the wall, where the entrance to the sniper's nest lay. Aiming patiently as she fell, she deftly hit the ball with a primary shock beam, detonating a perfectly placed combo in the face of a female figure that was just clearing the entrance. She twisted for the lading in the inner courtyard of the base, and hit softly, aided by an automatic cushioning jet from the jump boots. Sprinting around some cement pillars towards the flag, she tapped a button on her comm device to broadcast to the enemy line and taunted, ¨You like that?¨

¨Nice combo. Bitch.¨

She grinned and ran across the flag stand, the holographic image of a red flag disappearing from the stand and appearing on her pack as she passed. A short siren sounded over the arena speakers.

¨Brock, where you at boy? I need some cover here.¨

¨Busy, sweetcheeks!¨ came the clipped reply.

------

Riker threw himself sideways, catching the edge of his opponent's thundering shock combo and tumbling ass over elbows once before righting himself. He sprayed some green plasma balls with the pulse rifle's primary firing mode in Brock's general direction, hoping to distract him long enough to shorten the distance between them and prevent another combo. It appeared to work; no more blue bubbles came flying his direction. He trained a lance of plasma towards his opponent and closed in, dodging and weaving as he came.

Brock felt the searing shaft of plasma cut into his armor, but he calmly shouldered a sniper rifle and aimed back along the shaft; slightly up and to the right.

¨HEADSHOT!¨ boomed the announcer's gleeful yell over the arena.

Riker barely registered the flash of pain before he found himself respawned in his base, just in time to see Lauren go sailing over the wall with their flag.

¨Azure, what happened?¨

¨She combo'd me at the sniper. Get the flag. I'll get her cover.¨

¨Roger.¨

Riker translocated quickly around the base picking up the shock and pulse rifles, then over the wall. He saw Brock waiting for him outside, firing a beacon in his direction, then….. his head disappeared.

¨Headshot! Backatcha, Brock! Nice defensive teamwork there by the Thunder Crash,¨ announced the clownish booming voice. A second later the siren sounded again, indicating that Malcom had the enemy flag. At least Lauren couldn't cap right now - in order to score a point, you had to touch the enemy's flag to your own on its stand. Riker continued translocating quickly towards the fleeing glimmery yellow figure, pausing long enough to tap his comm device and notify his teammates of the situation. ¨Enemy flag carrier leaving at the rocket launcher!¨

Malcom's commanding voice replied ¨OK, Riker, meet me at the belt for cover. Aryss and Othello, take out their FC.¨

¨Roger cap'n.¨ Riker shot his beacon towards the central route where the shield belt spawned. Looking along the corridor that cut through the central cliff, he saw the shield belt appear and Malcom running towards it - but he was being pelted with a hail of minigun bullets. He made a valiant effort, but crumpled a few feet from the belt. His body disappeared; the holographic flag remained. Riker shot a shock ball into the corridor, but it didn't arrive at the flag in time to stop an enemy defender, who translocated in and touched the image, ¨returning¨ it to his base. A moment later, Riker´s combo blew him in half.

Malcom cursed as he respawned, making for the shock rifle and the armor pickup.

¨Man down!¨ yelled Aryss across the comm. Malcom glanced over to see Othello spawning on the other side of their base.

¨Riker, Aryss, get in there!¨ he yelled, knowing their chances of stopping an enemy capture now were slim since their two teammates in any position to catch Lauren faced all five of the Iron Guard. Malcom was translocating out of his base when he saw Aryss spawn on the parapet, and shortly after, the synthesized fanfare indicating that the blue team had scored sounded across the arena.

¨Aaaaand the Iron Guard answers Thunder Crash's first cap with one of their own, tying things up with twenty five minutes to play!¨ crowed the announcer.

Both teams fell back to a more defensive strategy after that, and the match was still tied at the end of regulation play. Sudden-death overtime commenced. The gladiators were tiring, but youthful Malcom, his body energized by the very finest FenTech had to offer - chemical stimulants, synapse enhancers, and endurance proteins - was now in his element.

------

After about ten minutes of overtime, the balance shifted. Malcom spawned in the base and started a run on the enemy flag once again. He grabbed the jump boots on the way out, being careful to move by running and translocating so as not to activate a jump and waste their three charges, and arrived at the center passage just in time to pick up the shield belt. He crouched quickly against the wall of the passage and peered through the scope of his sniper rifle into the sniper nest of the enemy base. Through the dancing waves of heat he could see a barrel protruding. He aimed into the cement slot and fired.

¨Headshot! Malcom with a blind snipe from halfway across the island! I tell you folks, this boy's iiiin-human!¨

He wasn't wasting time listening to this garbage, but translocating towards the enemy base as fast as possible. On a hunch he paused and shouldered his sniper rifle, just in time to catch another defender running around the side of the base. Two quick shots in the chest, and he fell. Othello's voice, gruff and deep, crackled in his comm. ¨Right behind you, Malcom. Let's head in with miniguns.¨

¨Agreed.¨

They translocated onto the parapet, unsheathed their big heavy bullet-dispensers, and opened fire into the small cement courtyard below. The two recently-spawned defenders fell quickly again, this time respawning somewhere out of sight but nearby, most likely outside the base (a mechanism designed to discourage the unsavory practice of ¨spawn-camping¨).

Malcom grabbed the flag and boot-jumped over the wall; Othello followed him outside the base but paused on the flat rock patio that surrounded it.

¨Got your back.¨

¨Roger.¨ Communication in matches was generally pretty terse. Wasted words didn't help you win. Malcom headed right, running steadily along the ledge of ropy basalt and trying not to look at the river of lava below. He heard behind him the thunder of shock combos that Othello was laying around the base to stall the defenders' pursuit.

As he neared the passage through the monolithic central bluff, the siren sounded again. Malcom gritted his teeth and urged his legs to move faster, coughing a little as he pulled in larger gulps of hot, rancid air. He grabbed a rocket launcher in the passage and held it loosely, struggling to run now with the weight but churning ahead. His base crept into view from behind a low, ashy hill with two figures engaged in a skirmish in front of it. They weaved back and forth, firing shock bubbles and looking for the opportunity to combo.

Malcom saw the lithe red figure of Aryss fire shock balls to both sides of her opponent. Instinctively, the Iron Guard member dodged away from the first ball, then back towards it to avoid the second one - and was annihilated by a combo as Aryss surgically detonated the first ball with a primary beam.

¨Nice, Aryss. FC?¨

¨In the base, still stacked.¨

¨Incoming!¨ came Riker´s voice. ¨They forced me off the middle with combos. Watch side passages.¨

Malcom was too close to the base for it to matter, as long as they took out the enemy flag carrier pronto. He held down the trigger of his rocket launcher as he ran, hearing a series of clicks and whirs as rockets were loaded one at a time into the six firing chambers. When he released the trigger, however many rockets had been loaded by then would fire simultaneously. When six were loaded, it fired automatically. He expected the enemy flag carrier to appear, but she didn't, and he had to shoot the rockets off into the sky to avoid blowing up himself or a teammate.

A primary shock beam slammed into Malcom's back, knocking him forward and stunning him for a second. He scrambled to his feet, ran a few steps to the edge of his base while holding down the trigger to his rocket launcher, and jumped.

He saw Lauren flying over the wall towards him in midair. She had a rather surprised look on her face, just visible through the shimmering energy armor of the shield belt. Malcom pivoted his torso, quickly visualized the rest of her trajectory, and fired four rockets at the ground outside the base. He landed backwards, catlike, on the wall just in time to see Lauren and the pack of rockets converge on the ground in a beautiful fiery explosion. When the smoke cleared, only the flag and a scorch mark remained.

¨I've got the flag!¨ announced Azure over the comm.

¨Affirmative.¨ He had already dropped down off the wall, and was sprinting the last few steps to the flag stand where he stopped and crouched. The red flag's image appeared through the middle of his body a moment later, and the cheesy automatic fanfare played instantly.

¨Red team has won the match!¨ howled the announcer. ¨Malcom and the Thunder Crash have defeated the Iron Guard, and secured their spot in the CTF semifinals. Let's go have a quick interview with our young star, Mmmmaaaaalcommm!¨ A small camera drone flew out of the sky and circled around him. The voice of some far-off announcer, probably sitting in a comfy starship lounge far above the hellish planet, issued from it.

¨How do you feel about your victory over the Iron Guard today, Malcom? They gave you quite a match.¨

¨I respect them as worthy opponents and am happy for the win. Lauren and Brock are friends of mine, and their relationship inside the arena is just as tight as it is outside - those two can really coordinate.¨ The Iron Guard was almost as popular as his team, the Thunder Crash, so it really wouldn't do to gloat overmuch in this victory. Besides, Lauren and Brock really _were_ friends of his, even though he was obviously superior when it came to the Tournament.

¨After your victory today, how do you feel about the exhibition duel with Gorn tomorrow? And the team deathmatch championship with his squad next week?¨

¨Gorn is old. He's a relic. I'm going to dazzle him with my sniper on Deck 16 tomorrow, and chew apart his team with my minigun on Tempest next week.¨ He flashed a cocky grin. Gorn's team was experienced and dangerous, but not terribly popular. Talking badly about them was good for your ratings. He felt like sort of an asshole, but apparently the specs liked that kind of thing.

¨Anything else you'd like to add?¨

¨As always, I want to thank my sponsor FenTech for their support and terrific products.¨ He faced directly at the camera and smiled big. ¨FenTech: we make you better than other people.¨


	3. Scene 3

**Scene 3**

¨Moron.¨ Gorn tapped a button on his keyboard to shut off the live ´net broadcast with a disgusted sigh. _Dazzle me with your sniper, eh Malcom_? he thought. Y_ou think this 1v1 will be easier because I'm old? Man, at least try to make some _original_ errors in judgment_. He shook his head absently, smiling a little to himself. _You better pack your brain along with that rifle, because flashy young CTF players aren't known for beating experienced duelers in the 1v1 arena._

Gorn chased away these thoughts and got up, heading into the kitchen of his modest city apartment for a drink. He surveyed the impressive collection in his liquor cabinet for a few minutes, mulling over the choices, then turned away from it and got a beer out of the fridge. Some days you wanted to sip an exotic beverage from some newly-discovered civilization in the far reaches of the galaxy, and some days you just wanted a nice, cold beer. Today fit into category B.

He popped the cap absently with the metallic side of his jaw and spit it into the garbage chute. A cheery female voice issued from a tiny speaker near the chute: ¨-zero-point one- credits have been added to your account. Thanks for recycling!¨ _Hell_, Gorn thought, _don't thank me. Thank the huge fine I get if I'm caught throwing stuff away._ He took a pull off the beer and ambled back to his living room.

The place wasn't large, but Gorn had it set up with all the accoutrements that an active gladiator could want - weights, spa, and a computer with a nice big screen and military-grade hacking software to research every hidden detail about his opponents. Being a war hero had its advantages, and having connections with military hackers was probably his favorite one. Well, besides getting exotic alien booze sent to him by friends still in the forces, obviously. He walked over to the spa, shedding clothes as he went, and slipped in. He reached to the window behind him and pulled back the drape, staring out across the lights of Vancouver which twinkled and wavered through the murky smog that blanketed the city. Gorn tried to relax; the beer helped some, but his thoughts kept returning to the duel tomorrow.

He finally gave up and hopped out of the spa, toweling off quickly, dressing and grabbing another beer before parking himself once again at his computer. He clicked through the menu to bring up a popular 3d puzzle game called Crazy Blocks. When it was loaded, he hit a four-key combination, waited a few seconds, and tapped the same combination again. An innocuous-looking blank window appeared, with the word ¨halcyon¨ in its menu bar. Gorn tapped a key and this appeared in the blank space:

USER IDENTIFY

Gorn pressed his thumb onto the pad built into his keyboard, and said ¨Gorn¨. More text appeared.

VOICE-PRINT MATCHED. HELLO GORN.

HELLO HAL he typed. INFO NEEDED ON A GLADIATOR.

The reply was instant, as always. OH, THAT GUY MALCOM THE NEWS CHANNEL REPORTS YOU ARE DUELING TOMORROW?

YES. BASIC PROFILE.

SURE THING.

Gorn maximized the window, and a second later it was full of text:

GLADIATOR: MALCOM

NAME: SALIF YELE DOUSSU

BIRTH:NAIROBI, KENYA, AFRICA, 2350

CURRENTLY: NEW YORK

TEAM: THUNDER CRASH

TEAMMATES: RIKER, ARYSS, OTHELLO, AZURE

Brief information about Malcolm's parents and teammates followed, but Gorn skipped it and entered:

AFRICA? HE ACTS VERY AMERICAN.

HE WAS NOTED FOR ATHLETIC ABILITY AT AGE 7 AND TRANSFERRED TO A PREPARATORY ACADEMY IN VIRGINIA FOR A CAREER IN SPORTS.

SCHOLARSHIP?

YES. NOTABLE INSTRUCTOR COMMENTS: ¨EXTREMELY TALENTED¨, ¨ADAPTABLE AND CLEVER¨, ¨CALM UNDER ANY PRESSURE¨, ¨GIFTED LEADER¨.

NOTHING ABOUT RASHNESS OR BRAGGERY? Gorn quizzed.

NOT FROM HIS ATHLETIC DAYS.

SPORTS AND OTHER COMPETITIONS?

BASKETBALL, FOOTBALL, RUNNING, BIATHLON, ARCHERY, RIFLERY, CHESS.

AWARDS? DISTINCTIONS?

TOO MANY TO LIST; CAPTAIN OF MOST SPORTS TEAMS HE WAS A MEMBER OF.

Gorn frowned worriedly. The image that he projected to the public these days would suggest otherwise, but Malcom appeared to have a very solid base in leadership and strategy. KNOWN VICES? PERSONAL WEAKNESSES? he pressed.

LIKES TO PARTY LIKE ANY NORMAL RICH 25 YEAR OLD. NO DRUGS BUT LOTS OF COMBAT STIMULANTS AND SUCHLIKE FOR THE TOURNAMENT.

Gorn tapped the metal plate in his chin thoughtfully and sighed. All pretty standard stuff, really, nothing he could exploit in a fight. Some battle stims made fighters erratic, but that was only in the case of home-dopers who didn't do it right. Malcom was highly sponsored by on of the biggest companies out there - FenTech - they would make sure he got the correct treatment. Still, it wouldn't hurt to explore this avenue a little.

WHAT STIMS? he typed.

REFLEXON, ENDURO-3.1, SENSOBOOST, COORDINATUM. YOU KNOW, THE USUAL.

WHAT ABOUT STUFF THAT ISN´T PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE? Gorn insisted.

NO INFO AVAILABLE FROM NEG SOURCES.

ACCESS FENTECH'S NETWORK.

SAME AS PUBLIC INFO.

Gorn pressed on. NOTHING UNUSUAL?

SCARCITY OF DATA ON FENTECH NETWORK SUGGESTS PHYSICALLY ISOLATED PRIVATE DATABASE.

Gorn sighed again and twirled in his chair. That might be useful information to have, but getting it would be impossible. It might also be useless information. Malcom was obviously more than your average chem killer on his own merits. He asked one last question.

ANY OTHER RELEVANT PERSONAL INFO?

MAYBE. HE IS MARRIED AND HAS A DAUGHTER.

_What a chump_, Gorn thought. _Got his college honey knocked up and now he's trying to be a family man AND a gladiator. I bet he's a great dad._ FAMILY STATS? he typed.

WIFE: SHYLEEN DOUSSU, 26, HOUSEWIFE.

DAUGHTER: NARA DUSSOU, 7, PRIVATE SCHOOL.

OK. THANKS HAL.

ANYTIME.

Gorn shut down the program and sat back, drumming his fingers on the desk. Information about their family might distract a fighter in a match if they were foolish enough to have one, but it was a cheap trick that he considered himself above and probably wouldn't work anyways. The fact was that this might be a difficult match, but he'd faced many tough opponents before and liked a challenge. Still, he couldn't respect Malcom much as an opponent. Real fighters kept their mouths shut and let their skills do the talking. And a family - what the hell was he thinking?


	4. Scene 4

**Scene 4**

¨Shyleen!¨

¨Yes, honey?¨

¨Where's my bitch? Malcom needs jelly roll. His lousy Capture the Flag team almost lost to the Iron Guard today.¨

Shyleen snorted a laugh at what passed for a term of endearment these days and walked from the kitchen towards the entrance of their expansive, high-class New York condominium. Malcom met her halfway and grabbed her with his long arms, holding her in a close embrace with both hands on her ass. He pinched a cheek. ¨See? I feel better already.¨

She pushed him away distractedly. ¨Not now, honey, I'm cooking. And Nara is here.¨

¨Playing with her VR I bet. Come on; well just sneak off…¨

¨I just don't feel like it, Malcom,¨ she said abruptly. ¨I'm busy. Wait a few minutes for dinner, then why don't you go blow off steam with your friends?¨

¨Hey, all right. Damn, woman, what's the big deal?¨

¨Nothing, honey. I´ve just got some stuff on my mind. How about interacting a little with your daughter until the food is ready?¨

¨Hm.¨ Malcom nodded and left Shyleen to her preoccupations, walking off towards Anna's room on the other side of the condo. His place clearly demonstrated that its owner was a much richer man than Gorn. Besides being located near the top of Brooklyn's finest high-rise complex, sitting at a dizzying altitude over the city, it was filled with all the typical signs of a rich young man who couldn't figure out exactly what to do with all his money. A varied smattering of art could be found spread around the place; paintings and statues and the like from basically random styles and time periods, selected with the careless eye of someone with an overabundance of funds and no taste whatsoever. Completing the incongruous dashes of culture were the best high-tech toys and gadgets available. Malcom had his own VR set, which he used for training once in awhile but much more often just to kill time. Not as exciting as the arena, but fun nonetheless. He liked the new action game from id, Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3. Nara, on the other hand, lost herself in the VR interactive stories targeted at children that were all the rage these days. Malcom thought she played too much, but she wasn't a complete VR addict like some kids, and he'd feel like a hypocrite telling her to stop if he wasn't going to offer some entertaining activity in return. Nara was receptive to hanging out with her dad when he was around and available; it wasn't her fault this occurred so infrequently.

Malcom knocked on Nara's door, as she'd trained him to do in her comically demanding little-girl manner (¨Dad! My room is _private_!¨). ¨Hey Nara, you there? Up for some Destruct-O-Cars with your papa?¨

¨Busy!¨

¨Hey, if you're afraid of being smacked down, just say so. I can always come back when you're feeling more…..¨

The door opened abruptly and a face poked out, framed with frizzy black hair and wearing a severe scowl. Nara had not really inherited Shyleen's stunning model's beauty, but rather the serious, intense aspect of her father. She had a steady, studious gaze that suggested intelligence beyond her years and sometimes made visiting adults fidget under her frank stare. ¨Afraid!¨ she said indignantly. ¨I beat you last time, remember?¨

¨Yeah, but I let you.¨

¨Did not! You suck at Destruct-O-Cars. I always beat you.¨

¨Prove it to me then, miss tough…¨

They commenced trash talking as he entered and sat down cross-legged in front of her VR screen, strapping on a pair of occlusion goggles that would allow him to watch the same screen as her and see only his in-game viewpoint. They played several rounds, mercilessly blowing up each others´ virtual cars with historic and modern-day weapons and maintaining a banter of unfavorable appraisals of each others´ skills all the meanwhile. Malcom was having so much fun he forgot to lose enough, and when Shyleen called dinner over the house-com he was leading by several points.

¨Aaaawwww, how'd you win?¨

¨First time for everything, right?¨

¨Well, there was that one other time, when Doctor….¨

¨Malcom and Nara, dinner!¨ More insistent this time.

¨Coming! Better pack it up Nara, mama sounds pissed.¨

¨Yeah, she was bitchy today,¨ agreed Nara.

¨I worked hard on this and it's getting cold! Oh, and remind me to talk to you later about your vocabulary lessons, _sweetie_.¨ Malcom rolled his eyes skyward. Who turned on the two-way com connection in Nara's room? Shyleen seemed uncharacteristically on-edge lately, too. It was strange; since he could think of no major changes in their lives that might have affected her. Well, he had been more active in the Tournament lately, due to his accumulating fame and success. Maybe she just wanted more family time and was being typically female in not communicating this to him. He scooped up his giggling daughter and headed toward the dining room with her on his shoulder.


	5. Scene 5

**Scene 5**

With a low hum, the lights flickered on in Deck 16. One of the most famous Tournament arenas for both dueling and team deathmatch, it had a history of bloody contest that preceded the Tournament itself. A couple hundred years ago, the place was Settling Deck #16 of a bio-waste processing plant in Old Chicago. Officially shut down due to malfunctioning equipment and toxic conditions, its use continued unofficially afterwards by bio-processing factory workers from around the city as an arena in which to settle ¨personal disputes¨. Liandri Corporation bought the facility when one of their scouts learned of its former ¨recreational uses¨, and renovated it for Tournament play. In this case, of course, improving safety was not a concern - only structural durability and the addition of a few dozen translocators and matter reconstructors. The stinking, corrosive pools of bio-waste remained.

------

Gorn checked the functioning status of his mechanical eyes and ear for the tenth time, clipped on his pack, and walked into the private translocation terminal in the central station of Vancouver. He appeared in an empty circular lobby with two translocation portals - one with a sign marked ¨Exit¨ and the other with a sign that said ¨Arena¨. The shiny tiled floor was inlaid with a pattern that, viewed from above, said ¨Deck 16¨ in the center of a big red circle.

He entered the portal that said ¨Arena¨ and appeared on a wide cement bridge over a large pool of toxic green sludge in Deck 16. Malcom was already there, standing off to the side of the bridge, staring pensively across the arena to a pile of metal industrial crates which were clustered around a shock rifle. He appeared to ignore Gorn's presence. Gorn took a moment to study his opponent. He was tall, maybe 6´5¨, but not huge like some of those freaks in Raw Steel, with a medium build. Gorn estimated that he was probably superior to Malcom in raw strength, but any fighter worth a damn knew that often meant very little. Malcom's easy, natural pose and well-dimensioned athletic figure plainly demonstrated that his training regimen, at least, was natural. Those twitchy, over-bulky monstrosities that munched glandular stimulants were easy to spot.

Malcom finally turned and faced him. Really, a handsome guy - it was easy to see why the cameras loved him. He had a smooth-featured African face, strong cheekbones, and dark eyebrows that perched quizzically above his stylish shades. He extended his hand.

¨Gorn.¨

Gorn extended his own meaty hand and shook Malcom's with a grip appropriate to the occasion. ¨Malcom,¨ he replied.

Malcom registered no emotion on sizing up his opponent, but internally he was a little surprised. Gorn was one big dude. His pack appeared diminutive on the vast expanse between his huge shoulders, and his paw, seemingly outsized even considering its owner, practically enveloped Malcom's hand. The palm was rough and hard, like a laborer's. _Where do you come from, gladiator?_ wondered Malcom. He studied Gorn´s pale face, its unreadable cold features set in a thick neck and topped by close-cropped dense, brown hair.

¨Warm up?¨ Malcom asked. They might as well; the match was still fifteen minutes away. Gorn nodded. Malcom punched the Public line on his comm. and said ¨Respawn, please.¨

¨Roger that,¨ somebody replied. ¨Translocating combatants in 3…2…1…¨

Malcom and Gorn were translocated to randomly-selected spots that were somewhat distant from each other in the arena. They ran around collecting weapons, stretching and target-practicing on crates and shock balls but not much on each other. A cagey competitor obviously didn't show his cards before the game even started.

Presently, the announcer gave them the thirty-second warning, and both fell to a series of last-minute checks of their persons and equipment - fairly unnecessary, but performed as part of the ritual that every competitor has to busy their hands and mentally gear up for the coming moment.

¨Match begins in 3… 2… 1…¨

Gorn spawned in the body armor pit - good luck. He grabbed the armor and nearby shock rifle, and sprinted down one of the narrow exit corridors towards the main room. He pulled up short next to the expansive pool of sludge and kneeled, sighting carefully along his shock rifle across the room and up to its middle level where a pile of boxes surrounded the other shock rifle. He aimed between two boxes and waited; Malcom appeared a moment later and Gorn nailed him with a shock primary beam. Malcom staggered backward, and before he could get behind a box Gorn fired again. Malcom went down and stayed down.

Gorn quickly turned into a small compartment set into the cement pillar underneath the main central bridge at the foot of the slime pool, and picked up the jump boots within. He ran to the side of the middle bridge and boot-jumped up onto it. At one end of the bridge perched the overly-tempting shock rifle, and at the other, a minigun. He ran to the minigun and picked it up, then boot-jumped up to the uppermost ledge above it and ran toward the other end of the main room where the sniper rifle and a little more armor lay. He grabbed the sniper, and rather than camping out on its ledge as was popular among newbs that liked giving away body armor to their opponents, he ran down the nearby ramp back to the middle level and dropped down again next to the slime at the bottom.

He continued towards the opposite end of the arena from the body armor, where there lay a rocket launcher and a portal to a nice hiding place in the rafters high above the body armor pit. He emerged from the portal with minigun at the ready and pointed it down through the big metal I-beams at the passage below. Malcom, he guessed, would be avoiding the central room and coming from one direction or the other in this side corridor. Presently he heard the pick-up sound of somebody grabbing the other sniper rifle in the right-hand passage and aimed toward it. Malcom appeared running towards him, and Gorn let him pass below, then dropped behind his opponent and hosed his back down with a stream of minigun bullets. Malcom's body danced around upright a little, then pitched forward and disappeared. Gorn grunted in satisfaction and dropped to the bottom level to grab the body armor again. He didn't really need it, but keeping potential advantages out of your enemy's hands was a very important part of dueling strategy. He advanced into one of the narrow side passages to the main room, in order to monopolize the next pair of jump boots as well. He was in control of the match, but two points' lead was nothing. He had to keep the pressure on.

------

Malcom spawned again on the top ledge. Finally, some luck, but…. Oh, the goddamn sniper rifle was gone. Of course; it was last picked up less than thirty seconds ago, the ¨spawn time¨ for most objects in the arena. He ran the other way along the ledge to the bio-rifle. Slow-moving, extremely difficult to aim, easily dodgeable, and unbelievably damaging, the bio rifle was a classic desperation weapon. He depressed its secondary fire and waited while a huge glob of toxic goo charged up in its chamber. He heard the jump boots pickup sound and looked over the ledge down towards the minigun. Gorn shortly hove into view two levels below, and Malcom fired his fully charged bio shot in the general direction of the minigun. It splattered all over the bridge just as Gorn jumped right into it. He tried to escape, but Malcom had quickly pulled out his Enforcer pistol and shot into the largest puddle. The heat and agitation of the bullet started an instantaneous chemical reaction that spread in milliseconds to all the unstable goo around, causing it to vaporize into a superheated green cloud of plasma gas; Gorn more or less vaporized along with it. Malcom laughed and ran across the ledge to collect the recently-spawned sniper rifle.

------

Gorn spawned, cursing, at the flak cannon in the most useless corner of the arena. He ignored the flak and ran toward the pile of boxes and shock rifle nearby, not intending to pick up the weapon but to escape through the rocket launcher portal on the lower level before Malcom got the sniper. He made it that far, but at the other end of the portal, Malcom deftly shot his head off through a small window between the rafters and central room.

The next few minutes were very frustrating for Gorn. Malcom's prediction was uncannily good - freakishly good, really, for such an inexperienced dueler, and he was making excellent use of his superior foot speed to stay one step ahead of Gorn. His unparalleled aim with the sniper rifle - that, Gorn expected. But how did the bastard know where he was all the time?

Gorn got several more armor pickups, but failed to remove enough of Malcom's armor to frag him. There were health packs behind some boxes blow the sniper rifle ledge, and they always seemed to be there when Malcom was injured. Using all of his tricks and defensive tactics to stay alive while trying to ambush Malcom with some good prediction shock combos, Gorn was slowly falling behind. At the halfway point, Malcom led 7-2.

The breakthrough for Gorn occurred then, in a moment when he had engaged Malcom with the pulse rifle in an open firefight near the minigun, and knew that he'd left his opponent in a sufficiently injured state where he had to go get some health packs. Gorn spawned at the midlevel shock rifle, grabbed it, dropped down to the lower-level rocket launcher, and picked it up as he ran through the portal. He immediately started loading rockets and ran to the side I-beam where he had ambushed Malcom before. He guessed at the timing and fired four rockets blindly down towards the body armor. Malcom, coming from the health packs tucked behind some boxes in the body armor pit, practically walked right into the explosion - the force blew him back towards the shock rifle, where he rose unsteadily and moved onto one of the elevators that came out of the pit. He limped off it and crouched next to the door into the main room, poking his sniper across towards the lower rocket hole. Gorn combo'd him to pieces from above.

His control of the match restored, Gorn played aggressively and confidently, meeting Malcom head-on with his minigun before the other could set up an ambush or accumulate armor and weapons. During the brief reflective moments the match allowed, he wondered about the spectacular error in judgment on Malcom's part that had allowed him to retake control. His curiosity was piqued more when he scored the game-tying frag by ambushing Malcom from the same I-beam, again tearing into his unsuspecting back with the minigun exactly as with his second frag of the game. How could a player with such excellent predictive abilities make the same obvious blunder for the third time?

The ending was somewhat anticlimactic, as Malcom grew frustrated and desperate, making more frequent use of his Enforcer. His aim remained deadly, but it didn't really matter in a fight against Gorn's superior armor and merciless minigun. When the buzzer sounded and the announcer declared Gorn the winner, the score stood 12-7 in his favor.

They were both translocated to the center of the arena to shake hands. At that point, Gorn could no longer resist a jab - both he and Malcom had kept radio silence during the match like professionals, but right now nobody was listening.

¨Dazzling sniper, rookie, as promised, but winning in a duel requires more than just aim.¨

Malcom eyed him sullenly. ¨Like cheap tactics? Make it to a CTF game against my team where you can't hide like a rabbit and let's see you talk big.¨

Gorn's mouth twitched upward in a brief smile. ¨Maybe if you paid attention to my hiding spots you wouldn't fall for the same trick three times. I mean really, you hardly seemed that dumb the rest of the time.¨

Malcom, oddly, appeared confused by the remark. ¨I knew exactly where you were!¨ he responded quickly, angrily. ¨You just weren't…there …. Or where? I knew… I….¨ he trailed off, apparently bewildered by some thought, but composed himself a moment later and went on scowling. ¨Just wait ´til next week, chump. I'll find out all your tricks.¨

Gorn shrugged. ¨See you then, rookie.¨ They shook hands, Gorn impassive under Malcom's radiant anger.


	6. Scene 6

**Scene 6**

Anna sipped her Nali fruit tea serenely, savoring the energizing tickle through her body as the hyper-enzymes shot a pleasurable boost of metabolic activity into her system. The plant from which her tea was made was discovered on an occupied planet many years ago, when preliminary exploratory missions had first come into contact with the civilization known as the Skaarj, a race that would become the most fearsome enemy humankind had ever known. The Nali fruit contained some truly amazing compounds, which were less chemical enzymes than semi-living entities, similar in complexity and function to RNA viruses - except rather than attaching themselves to and destroying healthy cells in order to multiply, they sought out damaged and energetically-depleted areas and injected proteins that almost any living thing could use to repair itself or utilize for energy. The tea Anna was drinking actually contained a highly diluted version of the enzymes found in a living Nali fruit. Eating one fresh delivered such a powerful effect that it could save the life of a wounded person, or speed the healing of minor injuries by a substantial amount. However, the physical sensation was much less pleasant; kind of like being subjected to a prolonged mild electric shock. Hence the making of tea as a favored form of consumption.

Anna enjoyed its salient influence now as she sat in the bustling eastern European café, waiting for Gorn to show up. Supposedly he wanted to talk strategy, but Anna knew better. They did that weekly with the whole team present. Plus there was the location - CaféBibiana, in the military-political district of Warsaw, an innocuous-looking place from the outside with electromagnetic wave detectors inside and some truly frightening-looking male waiters who reportedly chucked people out for coming in with anything more technologically advanced than a ballpoint pen. It was clearly a place where people went to discuss things away from prying ears and eyes - and bugs. Anna felt almost unbearably curious about what it was that Gorn wanted to talk about, but she sipped her tea and waited.

He appeared in the landing about five minutes late, surrendered his translocation apparatus, and waited patiently as the rest of his person was searched. The door guards, imposing as they were, looked almost slight next to his ridiculously wide frame. He spotted Anna while being searched, and walked unhurriedly over to her table once the goons nodded at him to pass.

¨So Gorn,¨ she said before he could get a word out, ¨I trust we're talking strategy away from the rest of the team because you've got a _special_ assignment for me? Something very… _personal_… that only I can help you with?¨ She gave him her best smoldering look, making good use of her wavy black hair and dark mediterranean features.

¨I…uh…¨ he stammered, ¨actually, we're… uh… not here to talk strat. Why are you looking at me like that?¨

¨I know we're not here to strategize, and relax; I'm just fucking with you. C'mon Gorn, I'm not _grotesquely_ stupid. I mean, look at this place.¨ She thought the living sections of his face showed a hint of embarrassment. ¨But, I am very curious. So what's the story, chief?¨

¨You watch a certain duel yesterday in Deck 16?¨

¨Would that be the one where a certain Dark Phalanx founder smacked down a certain hot-shot CTF rookie with great aim and no brains?¨

He grinned. ¨Yeah, that one. Anything about it strike you as odd?¨

¨Not really, I mean you both made some pretty dumb moves, but other than that it went pretty much as I expected. Why? Am I missing something?¨

Gorn frowned. Anna was not a dueler, so she might not be expected to notice the subtleties. ¨My mistake was due to overconfidence and not predicting his moves correctly, and I didn't do it again. He made almost the same dumb error three times in the match due to apparently not knowing where I was. But did you notice his prediction the rest of the match?¨

¨Now that you mention it, he did seem to catch you by surprise more than most people - but I just thought you were having a bad day, especially after stepping into his goo like that.¨

Gorn shook his head emphatically. ¨I was throwing every trick I know at him to retake control for awhile there. I've dueled people who predict as well as that, but they were all experts. Want to know how many real matches Malcom had played on Deck 16 before facing me?¨

Anna shrugged. ¨A few? He obviously learned something along the way.¨

¨One, Anna. He destroyed some CTF-playing newb in a post-match grudge duel. It's goddamn weird. I could accept it if he was just clearly a prodigy, but why the gaps in judgment? Why did he play so inconsistently?¨

Anna shrugged again, but spoke with more interest than before, considering Gorn's question. ¨Interesting. Well, maybe he was just pissed. Guy obviously thinks so much of himself; it wouldn't surprise me if he had a hard time dealing with defeat or setbacks. He did seem pretty steamed in the post-match interview, too.¨

Gorn shook his head yet again. ¨I don't think so. I hate giving him this much credit, but he doesn't seem like the type to let his emotions affect his game that easily. And there's something else, too. After the match but before the interview ´cams came, I commented on his mistakes and he honestly seemed confused about what I was saying. No I think maybe his irregularity had something to do with his stims. HAL thinks they might have him on some kind of secret regimen.¨

Anna knew all about the program halcyon and its capabilities, as the Dark Phalanx was probably the most strategically thorough team in the Tournament and they constantly used HAL to research their opponents. ¨Was HAL any more specific?¨ she asked Gorn. ¨And why do you care, honestly?¨

¨His errors weren't random. They're related to some defect, I'm sure of it. If we can figure out what it is, we can use it to destabilize him in the TDM finals, and the CTF finals too, if we make it that far. He's a youngster and a hothead, but he's a born leader. If Malcom fails, so does the Thunder Crash.

Anna laughed out loud. ¨You're obsessed, you know that? OK, I can see why winning the Tournament is a big deal. But why all the trouble for secrecy? And why me? What do you mean to…. Oh, wait a minute,¨ she said, her eyes widening with understanding. ¨You can't seriously want me to…?¨

Gorn gave her a hint of his ghoulish smile. ¨You have the contacts to get this thing started. Nobody on the team knows anything about FenTech. And while it's only a guess, I'd put money on you knowing someone who might have access to inside info at FenTech.¨

¨Gorn, I can't do this. You don't know those people like I do. I mean, they have more connections than the internet. It isn't healthy to pry into their private affairs, and I would know.¨

¨Yes, you would. But consider this: How much of a blow to FenTech would it be to take out their poster boy? We might even be able to prove some kind of malpractice on their part. I know how much you like that company.¨

¨I. Fucking. Hate them.¨ Gorn could hear her teeth grinding. He'd held that card in reserve, knowing that the argument would be over when he played it. Anna had personal reasons to wish bad fortune on FenTech that dated back to her days as a Black Ops specialist; the company was, in a way, responsible for her defection.

------

Anna was never completely the Black Ops type. Raised in a military family in Athens, her patriarchal father had insisted on her brother's pursuit of a career in the armed forces, but stressed to young Anna that such careers were for _men_. There were lots of other interesting and useful things a woman could do, like cook and bear children.

Anna dreamed of participating in the fledgling Global Defense Force, recently formed by the New Earth Government in response to increasing awareness of threats from elsewhere in the Universe. She had no money to enroll in a military academy, which her father of course would not supply. She also had no desire to enter as a grunt in the army, and so opted instead to study intelligence and martial arts with the local volunteer defense brigade. She learned very quickly, and at the same time made some incidental contacts with officers in the GDF through her brother, who had gone to military academy and was already a colonel.

Possessing keen political instinct, Anna perceived that her brother's quick rise through the ranks without having seen actual combat might have created jealousy, and inadvertently, enemies within the GDF along the way. Secretly she resolved to keep an eye on him from the outside while she was looking for a way into the military.

She was right to do so. One hot summer night, Anna just happened to be testing a cell phone/radio signal collecting apparatus on top of a building next door to the location of a bash for the GDF higher-ups at which her brother was in attendance. It was, as she was prepared to tell anyone who might discover her and ask, a rather remarkable coincidence. Obviously she never intended to listen to the personal communications of world military leaders illicitly!

While fiddling with her battery settings, Anna happened to grab a few words from a 2-way keychain radio connection that chilled her. ¨…Colonel Zambaras…heading upstairs….two minutes…do it quickly and leave the body….paid next week.¨ There was no time to tell anyone. Already dressed in sleek black clothes for quick escapes should anyone discover her, Anna sprinted across the rooftop and flung herself into a tree between the buildings, breaking several branches and a finger before arresting her fall, then ignoring the pain and scrambling up to a long, thick branch that extended to a window on the second floor. She gained entry easily; someone had already cut a little hole through the window glass with a mini-cutter and unlocked it. Guessing the assassin had entered the same way, she proceeded cautiously through the room and into a hallway, where she encountered a man standing at the top of a flight of stairs, apparently smoking a cigarette, his back to her. Anna could see the gleam of garrote wire coiled in the hand he held behind his back. She padded up silently and strangled him with his own wire, broken finger and all, before he could cry out.

When her incredulous brother arrived, she told him to go back downstairs to the party and look for the next man to answer a call on his keychain radio because she was going to be calling him with the one the assassin carried. In this way they caught the conspirator, with sufficient evidence on his person to ensure his conviction. After the ensuing publicity, Anna was approached by a recruiter who asked if she would like to avoid a jail sentence for vigilantism and begin training for a position in the Black Ops, which she first accepted with joy and pride. But when the real missions began, things eventually went sour.

Black Ops meant secrecy. It meant doing things that Joe Bagodonuts was never supposed to know about. It meant being a political assassin and various other unsavory things that Anna tolerated until the order came to take ¨swift, decisive, and lethal¨ action against a commune of new-age naturalists that were protesting against FenTech and were rumored to have bombed one of its facilities. Anna understood and appreciated the necessity for moving against organizations that plotted secretly against the New Earth Government, but FenTech was a private entity. This was a police matter; what business did the NEG have secretly defending FenTech with the Black Ops?

Tortured by her conscience, Anna went rogue in the middle of a hit against several well-known leaders of the commune, managing to disrupt the mission and kill a couple of squad mates in the process. To avoid the wrath of the Black Ops' retribution, she joined the Tournament and escaped into a kind of quasi-autonomous world that existed with very little if any regulation by the NEG. As much clout as FenTech apparently had in the New Earth Government, it was nothing compared to Liandri Corporation. The corporate and mining mega-giant owned and managed the Tournament, and, it was half-joked, the NEG as well. Nobody messed with their assets.

So, Anna had escaped relatively unscathed from her employment in the most secretive and dangerous line of work officially sponsored by the NEG. What, if anything, she might known about FenTech had never been discussed within the Dark Phalanx. There was an unspoken rule among gladiators that your past died when you entered the Tournament. Gorn was knowingly violating that rule, and he knew Anna would be pissed. She was.

------

¨You're an asshole Gorn, you know that? People could die if we're caught prying too closely.¨

He snorted. ¨Funny lack of resolve from someone that betrayed her nation and squad just to save a few hippies.¨

She looked at him with as much calm as she could muster, but her eyes glittered with fury and her voice was strained. ¨You wouldn't get it, soldier boy. You took orders for too long. They never brainwashed away MY ability to think for myself.¨

¨They never did that to me, either. I simply have enough sense to know that my own interests come second to those of my team and nation when they are depending on me. If all my soldiers in the GDF had been like you, I'd probably be dead instead of having this,¨ he indicated his face, ¨and we'd probably have crumbled during the Siege.¨

------

He meant the Seven-Day Siege, Earth's darkest moment during the Skaarj Wars when the GDF was pinned down on the planet's surface for a week due to a daring move by the Skaarj in throwing their largest mothership and the bulk of their forces directly at the center of human civilization. A desperate strike team, aided by other ragtag forces that were finally starting to arrive from the mining colonies, managed to exploit a weakness in the mothership to destroy it and end the siege. Gorn, an unknown GDF captain before the battle, proved himself unquestionably in the ground fighting and left half-alive, but a war hero.

He also had started life an unlikely candidate for a destiny in the Tournament. Raised in farmland Russia, Gorn was a simple manual laborer for almost ten years before being drafted to serve in the GDF at the beginning of the Skaarj wars. He excelled in learning the Global Standard Dialect, and so was given command of a small squadron of Russians that would eventually serve in the defense of Warsaw during the Siege. Gorn was only a decent commander, but when the Skaarj troopers made it to the planet's surface on the fourth day, he killed as many as the rest of his squad put together. They held out in the most intense fighting until the end of the sixth day, when Gorn took a shot in the helmet from a Skaarj heavy trooper's energy gun, wrapping melted Kevlar and carbonium around his face. It had to be cut away with lasers and he lost his sight, smell, and hearing as a result. The GDF obligingly paid to replace these with the very best optic, audio and chemical sensors available in ¨recognition of outstanding services rendered¨.

The whole thing was a big publicity stunt. They'd actually drained all of Gorn's pension funds to pay for the surgery, and Anna suspected that he joined the Tournament as a way to avoid having to go back to hauling around grain sacks and hydrogen fuel tanks. His unshakable loyalty to the NEG, even after they'd pulled a stunt like that, never failed to amaze her.

She looked at Gorn levelly. They had both been sipping their tea in silence for awhile now. ¨I know a guy.¨

¨Figured you'd come around.¨

¨Piss off. I'm doing this for me, not you. But I have a condition, Mr. morally righteous war hero.¨ She leaned close, her voice fierce. ¨When I need help, and I will, you're going to help me. This was your idiot idea. You have to get your hands dirty.¨

He sighed. ¨I know. You going to start on this right away?¨

¨Yep. Got nothing else interesting planned ´til our TDM training in a coupla days. I'll talk to you then.¨

He simply nodded. ¨Thanks.¨ They got up and left simultaneously, walking out the door and diverging in opposite directions, never looking at each other.


	7. Scene 7

**Scene 7**

Anna contemplated the sweatshirt-hooded figure sitting there on a London park bench, crackers in its hand, birds hopping eagerly around its feet, pecking at crumbs. Such a timeless scene. She almost hated to disturb it, but then again… well, actually, that wasn't true. Who gave a damn about pigeons? She shooed them away and sat down next to the figure.

¨You scared the birds.¨ It was a male voice. The matron must have sent a helper.

¨So? They'll come back.¨

¨If you don't understand, I can't explain it to you.¨

She rolled her eyes. Goddamn hippies. ¨Sorry. Say, I'm looking for a friend. I think he passed by here. You happen to see him?¨

¨I did see one guy; talked with him for a bit. Said his name was doctor Marshall. I don't think he really wanted to see you.¨

¨Too bad for him. You see which way he headed?¨

The figure pointed a pale young finger to its right, which in this case was west. ¨That way, I think.¨

¨Thanks, man. I better get going then, I guess.¨ She started to rise, but an urgent hand on her knee stopped her.

¨Don't do this. Whatever you want, it isn't worth it. They didn't try to wipe us out for the bombings; it was because of what we know. They might decide to kill you too, if you learn too much.¨ He spoke in a hoarse whisper; fearful, frustrated, hopeless.

Anna picked the hand up off her knee and held it as she rose, facing the figure. ¨I know. But they won't find me so easy to kill.¨ He finally raised his head, just for a moment, and she glimpsed his features. He was even younger than she thought - just a kid, really. These cultish groups knew that brainwashing was easier when you recruited ´em young. She grimaced. _I'm not doing it for them; I'm doing it for me._ She dropped his hand and walked away, farther into the park, going at a leisurely stroll. It was a classic England fall day, way too nice not to enjoy a little.


	8. Scene 8

**Scene 8**

FENTECH RESEARCH NEW YORK

Read the simple etched brass sign on the intricately-wrought iron gate at the front of the complex. The fine, almost lacy work looked Victorian in style, with a healthy dose of Green mythology in content, and very out of context set in the massive carbonium-reinforced Meteorite wall - hardly strong enough for the function it was apparently performing. Oddly as well, the gate appeared to have no hinges or lock; it melded right into the wall on either side and beyond there was no walkway, only flawlessly-manicured grass. Anyone born in this age, however, would certainly also notice the glimmery portal edges fitted seamlessly into the sides of the gate next to the voice-print-eye matcher. An authorized visitor that stepped into it would be teleported somewhere near their destination inside, an unauthorized visitor got sent directly to jail, without passing go, and owing a rather hefty fine considering the harmlessness of the offense.

Malcom approached the matcher with his carelessly graceful athlete's stride, pulling out his keycard to be read as well, with its recently-received code recorded within. Biometric identity theft was almost childishly simple these days thanks to matter reconstruction technology, so good old fashioned magnetic cards had made a comeback. The new innovation now was temporary, visit-specific keycodes sent out ahead of time and decoded with a unique program on the receiver's apparatus. They were still as prone to security failures as their mode of transport (be it land lines, airwaves, or physical delivery) but each additional step in security made replicating the entire process a little more difficult.

Malcom paused a moment to study the gate and complex beyond. The squat, unremarkable structure was barely visible at a considerable distance, mostly obscured by the plants. But perhaps ¨plants¨ was too strong a word. There wasn't an organism in sight not genetically engineered, chemically enhanced, and flawlessly managed with an ethic that definitely crossed the line into the anal-retentive. Trees and shrubs could only be found in perfectly geometric shapes, not one blade of grass was too tall or too short, and there were no hints of disease or pests - each flawless leaf was alive and intact, and not an insect could be seen buzzing in the air. The scene always fascinated Malcom; alive but so utterly crystalline, sterile, totally lacking the spontaneity and chaos of true life. It was like looking at a bronze figure of a wave breaking, a manifestation of the random beauty of the world frozen in a rigidly sculpted moment. In later reflections, he would realize the ironically clear message this fastidiously-controlled garden conveyed about the management of FenTech and the true vision of its directive forces. At present, however, he was less inclined to such serious evaluation. He turned away from the garden, gravitating back towards his purpose.

Malcom slid his card into the slot, and stuck his face and thumb on the Matcher apparatus, holding his eyes unblinkingly open for a couple seconds in front of the scanners and saying ¨Malcom¨ into the conveniently positioned mic in front of his mouth. The Matcher beeped cheerily in recognition, and ejected his card.

¨Welcome to FenTech, Malcom,¨ said a honey-smooth synthesized voice. ¨Please step through the gate.¨ He pocketed his keycard and obliged without further ado, emerging at the end of a long, spotless hallway. A cute, white-uniformed female janitor gave him an impressed look, no doubt for the smoothness of his entry. Most people still stumbled after the brief, intense vertigo associated with translocation - well, the ones that had learned it as adults (hence the spongy mat he was standing on). Kids caught on faster, and Malcom had so much practice thanks to the Tournament that he could do it in his sleep.

¨Dr. Kilgard?¨ he directed at the disturbingly attractive custodian (weren't people in that line of work supposed to be ugly as a general rule?)

¨In his office, at least he was when I passed. Hey, aren't you that Gladiator that's always on TV?¨

¨Uh, yeah, I suppose. Don't tell me you want an autograph….¨

¨Actually,¨ she jumped in, ¨It's for my brother, you see he has, uh, muscular dysentery and can't get up and he asked me to…¨

Malcom brushed past her, tuning out the rest of her hastily invented lies and trying not to imagine what ´muscular dysentery' would be like. Fecal bacteria in the triceps maybe. No wonder her poor brother was bedridden. He continued down the hallway, ignoring the entreaties that followed him. Fame was only good on the large scale, it seemed. How come it was so great to talk to 10 billion devoted fans, and so irritating to talk to one? Well, at any rate, Doctor Kilgard's office was the next door. He absently waved behind him as he entered.

The man seated behind the raw-machined meteorite desk glanced up from his computer at the disturbance, talking while focused on his screen. ¨Good afternoon, Malcom. I'll just be a minute.¨

Doctor Kilgard ('Dr. Killgood', as the tournament athletes called him) was a pale, wiry man in his 50s with thin blonde hair that was graying dirtily around his temples and icy pale blue eyes that shone a cold light on the world - calculating, emotionless, and exact. He was the man who administered chemical treatments to Malcom and FenTech's few other top stars, and supposedly he also worked pretty high up in the Human Enhancement Program's R&D section. Nobody outside of FenTech, however, really knew what all his functions were. The company liked to keep its operations absolutely secret - it was, after all, contracted by the NEG for the production of military stims and hence dealt with matters of planetary security.

Dr. Kilgard finished his keyboard-tapping and glanced up at Malcom, now finally showing real interest in his visitor. ¨'Scuse the wait. Had to reach a point of resolution there, my train of thought doesn't switch tracks very easily. In for your weekly treatment?¨

Malcom hesitated briefly, disarmed by the doctor's atypical cordiality, but maintained his flawless poker face and responded with a question of his own. ¨Yeah, listen doc, there's that but I got something else on my mind too. There any bad long-term effects to using these stims? I mean, besides the physical stuff you guys already told me about… any problems concentrating or remembering stuff?¨

The doctor looked at him curiously, then frowned and shook his head. ¨Certainly none have been reported, at least not as a result of the professionally dosed Enhancements that we administer here. You haven't been taking anything else on your own, have you?¨

¨C'mon doc, I know better than that. I face those types of guys in the arena. They're useless.¨

¨Well, I'm not sure what to tell you, Malcom. Could you describe the symptoms to me in detail?¨

¨Yeah.¨ He cleared his throat and swallowed, thinking for a few seconds on how to begin. Dr. Kilgard waited patiently. ¨It seems like it might have started a couple months ago, maybe more, and you know, I just figured that out today, when I really thought about it. Stuff that's easy not to notice, you know? Little things I didn't realize I'd forgotten, until I tried to remember them. Then there's some odd stuff my daughter has said that I didn't think too hard about before, you know, she's pretty young….. mentioning conversations I didn't remember we'd had, stuff like that. I figured it was like a mixture of her imagination and those Interactive Stories. But then something really weird happened in my last match, and I got to thinking….¨

¨Ah, the duel in Deck 16, correct?¨ interjected Dr. Kilgard, appearing to show more interest.

¨Uh, yeah, that's the one. You watch it?¨

¨I like to keep tabs on my gladiators,¨ he said with an odd smile. ¨You are, after all, the best stress-test for our products.¨

¨Well, uh, you think I might have 'stressed one of your products too far? That match is about as clear in my memory as a night at Rudy's, doc. And afterwards, Gorn said I made some mistakes…¨

¨Ha!¨ Kilgard cut him off. ¨I saw what he said, and it doesn't require a lot to explain. He was trying to get you off balance; your team faces his in the team deathmatch championship next week, no? Surely you are familiar with psychological warfare?¨

¨Well, yeah,¨ admitted Malcom. ¨Still, it doesn't explain the other stuff…¨

¨Listen, Malcom. This could be any number of things. I want you to go see an M.D. and get checked out. Try to keep the partying at a minimum. And I'm going to make some slight adjustments in your dosage… I think I might know a possible cause there. All right?¨

Malcom sighed. ¨All right. We still on for today's treatment?¨

¨Yes. We have a brand new center set up just for gladiators, so you'll be getting your treatments there instead of with me from now on. The portal at the other end of this hall will take you there.¨

¨Thanks, doc.¨ Malcom turned to leave, but Kilgard's voice stopped him momentarily.

¨Remember, you can always come back here to me if you have any concerns. And, this may be outside my professional jurisdiction, but take care of yourself. Stress and unhealthy behavior can account for a lot. You're married, right?¨

¨Well, yes,¨ said Malcom, puzzled.

¨Again, this may be none of my business, but why don't you take more meals at home instead of going out all the time? Less temptation to party, more family time, and there's nothing like home cooking for nourishing the body… and mind.¨ Malcom thought he detected that odd smile again. Well, whatever. It looked like matters weren't going to be resolved today. ¨I'll think about it,¨ he said as he left.


	9. Scene 9

**Scene 9**

Anna rolled past downtown New York in a cab around 3 pm, as the pale autumn light filtered down to the streets through the Superscrapers, thin bars of luminescence that penetrated the skyline and mingled with the honey glow of light reflected off the mirror-like windows of the towers, diffused and refracted in the dust and smog near street level. She'd opted for the more conventional form of travel for the novelty and the fact that getting an open portal to the Big Apple at this time of day usually involved waiting so long that it was often faster to take a portal to New Jersey and a cab from there. She wasn't going into the center anyways, just passing by it on the way up north a little to the Bronx, where the Fen Tech research center was.

Her adolescent contact in London had indicated west for the location of this Dr. Marshall, which could mean a FenTech center in either New York or Seattle, so she'd called up Gorn and had him poke around with HAL to figure out which it was. Dr. Marshall, it turned out, worked in the R&D department of FenTech's commercial wing, i.e. their products considered harmless enough for public sale. Anna had contacted him via phone with the pretext of wanting to learn more about getting some performance enhancers for her team, in order to set up this meeting.

The cab left behind the Superscrapers of Manhattan and took the Rooftop Bypass, a quick route to the upper Bronx that avoided the congested, dirty, and dangerous streets of lower Bronx. A few minutes and several turns later, the cab stopped near a gate in an impressive Meteorite wall, and Anna hopped out without a word, having paid the computer-controlled vehicle before the ride, the norm these days. It was proven psychology: people were more tempted to stiff a machine than a real cabbie.

As Anna turned to head towards the gate/portal, she was surprised to see a familiar figure appear from it, sporting the always-present shades and walking a touch unsteadily. Of course Malcom would come here for his weekly chemical treatments (that must explain the stagger too); it was just an interesting coincidence running into him. He turned away from her and the gate and walked the other way, appearing not to have noticed the presence of another person. Anna shrugged and stepped up to the Matcher, identifying herself. She was greeted by a resonant synthesized male voice that said ¨Welcome to FenTech, Anna. Please step through the gate.¨ She cast a disparaging eye on the creepily bright and perfect garden on the other side of the portal, then headed through it.

She blinked her eyes and saw a circular modern styled lobby - bright lighting, a domed soft white ceiling, some rather large jungle plants tucked up against the walls, and very expensive shiny surfaces everywhere. A lone semicircular desk occupied the center of the room, complete with overly perky middle-aged receptionist. ¨Hello, how can I help you?¨ she asked in a voice so full of fake cheer it made Anna wince.

¨Uh, yeah, I'm here to see Dr. Marshall about getting some stims for Tournament use? My name's Anna.¨

¨Oh, well you'll be wanting to talk to Dr. Harvey in the Advanced Products wing, won't you? I'll just get you set up…¨

¨Actually, we'd prefer not to use the advanced products without a fully sponsored treatment. Too many nasty side effects for screwing up the doses. Can I see Dr. Marshall? I called ahead of time…name's Anna…¨

The receptionist paused, bewildered by a request that didn't fit within Standard Procedure. She recovered and announced, ¨Well, let's see if your name is in the system here… ah, yes, there it is. If you'll just step over here…?¨ she indicated a circular plate on the floor in front of the desk - ¨I'll send you right to his office.¨ Anna nodded vaguely and complied, impressed by the security of the place. It was decorated like to look like any old office complex, but anyone not supposed to be there would have an extremely hard time getting in.

The world flipped inside out for a moment as she was translocated, and she found herself in a long, plain hallway, standing just outside a door with the nameplate ¨Doctor K.S. Marshall.¨ She knocked lightly on the solid wooden surface, and was answered by an amiable ¨come in!¨ from the other side.

Doctor Marshall was a festively plump Asian man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, pretty young for the position he held. He had long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a warm smile that invaded deep into the territory of his chubby, lightly-freckled cheeks. Remove thirty pounds and he'd probably be quite a handsome guy, Anna thought. That kind of body modification was child's play these days, but there had recently been a social backlash against the increasingly ridiculous popular standards for physical beauty. She suspected that the doctor might be one of these self-proclaimed ¨imperfectionists.¨ He stood up to shake her hand, and gestured at a chair to the side of his simple black work console. ¨Please, sit down. You must be Anna. And as you have doubtless already deduced, I am Dr. Marshall. I've heard about you, you know. Seems you rejected quite a promising career in the military.¨

¨Yeah, it turned out to be incompatible with my ten-year plan.¨ She laughed bitterly. ¨Interesting that you know about it, though. I thought the NEG Bureau of Media Control kept the whole fiasco pretty well under wraps.¨

¨Yes, well let's just say I know some people that were affected by the incident.¨ He gave her a meaningful look.

¨Family?¨

¨As a matter of fact, yes.¨

¨They ok?¨ Anna couldn't manage to keep the emotion out of her voice.

¨Yes,¨ said Marshall, taking a deep breath and studying his hands for a moment, ¨yes, they are. Now is there _anything_ at _all_ I can do to help you?¨ He gave her another meaningful stare.

For an answer, Anna gave him a questioning look and then glanced around the room, tapping her ear with a finger. Marshall shook his head. ¨This is a private conversation. The NEG has the authority to review recorded security media from here, and well, there are certain things that FenTech doesn't want just anyone listening to.¨

¨Cool. Hey, I supposed it has occurred to you by now that I must have a darn good reason to be here at FenTech, considering my history with them.¨

¨Yes, it certainly has. Plus, gladiators generally opt for the higher-end stims. Theoretically, I could help you get access to some of the brand new public-release products that haven't hit the retail market yet, but why go to the effort to get next year's mineral water when you can get this year's cognac?¨ He smiled. ¨Am I right? So then, why would you come to me specifically? Well, maybe you guys don't have much money, but considering the circumstances between us, I would be happy to help you get a real sponsorship package, if that's what your team is interested in…¨

She cut him off with a hand gesture and an emphatic negative head shake. ¨It isn't. We win on meat and potatoes… well, and the occasional Nali fruit. But not everybody does. Come to think of it, does that seem fair to you?¨

Marshall gave her an ironic smile. ¨I might remind you that you're talking to someone who makes physical enhancers for a living.¨

¨Yes,¨ she replied, ¨and pardon me if this is too presumptuous, but you clearly don't use them. Why not?¨

¨Let's just say that they've recently started to seem a lot less appealing to me,¨ he said, looking down at his hands somewhat evasively.

¨But you have no problem working here.¨

¨Look,¨ he said, exasperated, ¨are you going to tell me what it is you want?¨

Anna paused a moment, then laid it straight out. ¨We're going to face Thunder Crash next week in the Tournament TDM championship. I take it you've heard of them? Well, my teammate Gorn believes that the stims their captain Malcom is on are impairing his performance somehow, that there's some basic irregularity to his play. We want to find out what it is, so we can use it to beat them.¨

¨Heh.¨ Marshall rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ¨And how do you propose to learn this by coming to me?¨

¨You're a start. Also, I'm not quite sure why you still work here, because if I were you I wouldn't be too happy with FenTech as an employer. However, if you'd like to help me put some sugar in their gas tank, this is a good opportunity.¨

Marshall sighed unhappily, his eyes returning to his hands folded on the desk. ¨I'm sorry Anna, but you have no idea of the size of this thing you're asking about. Malcom is just a pawn; actually I feel a little sorry for him. You're prying at the lid of Pandora's box, and believe me, beating him in a Tournament match is not worth the other things you're going to find inside.¨ He looked up and was disconcerted to see the mischievous grin that was creeping onto her face. ¨Hey, are you listening to me?¨

¨Sounds like that kind of big bad secret that could do some serious damage to FenTech.¨

¨It will do some serious damage to you first, Anna…. In fact, it already has.¨

¨If you're referring to the way my career in the most brutal and unscrupulous division of the armed forces terminated, I would thank FenTech for the favor. That is, of course,¨ she added through her teeth, ¨If I hadn't sworn to pay them back for every drop of innocent blood that was spilled in their name.¨

¨For the last time,¨ Marshall said, pleading now, ¨please do not get mixed up more in this. There is really nothing you can do. You want to know the real reason I haven't left FenTech? I can't, that's why, because I know too much; they'd have to eliminate me.¨

Anna raised her eyebrows, impressed. ¨This really _is_ something big, isn't it? Hey man, don't worry. I can't promise to stay away from this, but I won't ask you anything more if it puts you in danger, all right?¨

Marshall nodded morosely. ¨Do what you want, and I'll wish you the best of luck. I apologize for not being any….¨ he trailed off as something occurred to him. ¨Well, actually, wait a minute,¨ he said as Anna was getting up to leave. ¨There's one little tip I can give you for the match versus the Thunder Crash.¨

¨Yes?¨ she smiled.

¨Review the video files of the Deck 16 match and watch closely for Gorn's position where Malcom screws up. Once you know what to look for, it's pretty obvious.¨

Anna just nodded at him and gave a friendly goodbye salute, touching two fingers to her forehead. Marshall caught the whisper ¨they'll get theirs,¨ that she left floating in the air as the door closed.


	10. Scene 10

**Scene 10**

Anna stood outside, wondering where the exit was. She spied a uniformed figure washing the floor of the hallway to her right, and headed off to ask directions, wondering what a human janitor was going working at a company as rich as this in an age of mechanical cleaning. When she got closer, the custodian noted her presence and looked up. She was an oddly good-looking female, but quickly demonstrated that her surplus of beauty was more than compensated for by a deficit of brains. ¨Hey,¨ she wanted to know, ¨are you a gladiator?¨

¨Uh, yeah, why….¨

¨Can I get your autograph?¨ I'm trying to collect them from all the Tournament athletes that come in. I'm starting a collection, you know, for my brother. He has Orange Fever and can't go out and asked me to….¨

¨Sure, ok, whatever,¨ Anna replied hastily, in order to staunch the flow of prattle. Orange Fever? ¨You got a book?¨ The girl pulled out a small pad and pen out of her uniform and handed it over, gushing thanks.

¨Wow, awesome thank you! You know, you're so much nicer than that other guy who came in earlier, whatsisname, Malcom? I dunno why he's so popular, what a rude person, didn't even…¨ Anna held up her hand to halt the stream of words. She frowned thoughtfully. ¨Where did you say Malcom went today?¨

¨To visit Doctor Kilgard, just like always.¨ Anna thought she detected an uncomfortable fidget at the doctor's name.

¨Huh.¨ This space cadet might be useful. ¨Hey, I was wondering, my team is trying to get a real sponsorship deal like the one Malcom has, and I need to talk to the doctor. Is his office near here?¨

¨It's in a different module. This building isn't connected, you know, just portals and modules. But you need an appointment to go there.¨

Anna put on her most crestfallen face. ¨Wow, I really needed to talk to him today; we play Malcom's team soon and if they all have stims but not us, I know we're going to lose. By the way, how do the janitors get around this place?¨

The vacuous custodian flashed a magnetic card that she had tucked into a pocket of her shirt. ¨Keycards. They give them to us at the main desk every day when we come in.¨

¨Ah yeah, I had a job like that once,¨ Anna said, thinking quickly. ¨You know I used to be a janitor?¨

¨Really?¨ exclaimed the girl, delighted.

¨Yeah, really. They fired me though, and bought a Janitron 3000. You must be a great janitor, since they've kept you!¨

¨Well, yeah,¨ said the girl, somewhat nervous. ¨I do special cleaning jobs, and Doctor Kilgard… well, I, um…¨

Anna gave herself a mental pat on the back and decided it was time to change the subject. ¨Well, I'm sure you must be great at it,¨ she soothed. ¨Hey, security sure is tight here, no? I bet they change your keycard every day. They did that where I used to work.¨

¨Ha!¨ laughed the janitorette. ¨It's actually easier here. Nobody gets into the lobby without permission, so I just leave my card there at night. It's less trouble.¨

¨Wow,¨ said Anna, smiling, ¨you sure are smart!¨


	11. Scene 11

**Scene 11**

Gorn crouched on the shield belt's high walkway above the large room in the arena Tempest, waiting for the shield belt. He checked the clock on his holographic HUD to note how much time remained for it to appear. He'd been controlling the belt for almost the entire practice match, but last cycle he'd lost track of the time the damage amplifier would appear next, and if it was grabbed by the opposition before the shield belt spawned, they might be able to force him to retreat and give up the belt as well. 15 seconds left…. 10….

Just then, the grating alarm bell that indicated someone had taken the damage amplifier sounded. ¨Enemy amp!¨ warned Farham's voice in his earpiece.

Gorn dashed down the ledge to a position where he could spam combos into the doorway that came from the amp room. He was so busy doing this that he didn't hear the hiss of the jump boots from the ¨back door¨ entrance, a window behind him only reachable by boot jumping. He did manage to hear someone fire a shock ball, and turned his head just in time to see the flash of the combo that obliterated him. He spawned on the lowest level of the arena, somewhat nearby, and started towards the nearest weapon - the biorifle. Before he even got to it, Anna descended on him from the right, coming down the stairway to the amp room like death on wheels with her pulse rifle glowing purple, temporarily granted a 3x boost in power by the damage amplifier. He barely even felt the searing bolt of plasma cut through him before respawning again, cursing, this time on the other side of the arena near the body armor. He figured Anna and Ivana, the opponents of himself and Farham in this training match, would sweep the map together in the direction they were heading, away from the damage amp, so he turned and ran towards the amp room - and was roasted again by Anna at the top of the stairs that headed down to the biorifle, who had anticipated his idea and retraced her steps.

As he spawned yet again, at the minigun now, shaking his head in disbelief, he eyed the score. It was now tied at 25-25, with 10 seconds left to play. ¨Farham, hide!¨ he yelled into his mouthpiece.

¨Roger that.¨

To no avail. A couple seconds later, he saw another point added to Anna and Ivana's score, and knew that they had lost. How'd they found Farham so quickly?

The endgame buzzer sounded and they were immediately teleported out of the arena to a gladiator's lobby. Tempest was designed exclusively for Tournament play, and the time slots for using it were pretty strict.

Anna poked his huge chest with a wicked grin. ¨Now don't be too upset, Mr. Tournament veteran. You win some, you lose some.¨

He laughed. ¨Upset? I can't believe the progress you two have made. We are going to pulverize Thunder Crash, even if Malcom plays at 100.¨

¨What if he doesn't?¨ Anna asked, winking at him.

¨Well, one can never to too sure of that,¨ Gorn replied, not wanting to discuss this in front of the others without first knowing the specifics of Anna's sleuthery. ¨Ivana, you want to talk about our game plan for Wednesday this evening?¨ Since she was their captain and he co-captain, they usually met before every match to go over the specifics of their strategy.

¨Sure thing, Gorn. Where you thinking?¨

¨My place, in a couple hours?¨ The proposal might seem somewhat indecent, but they usually used some kind of private location. Gorn had been impressed from his days in the military with the importance of guarding your plans, and Anna, who knew a thing or two about what one could do with surveillance, supported the philosophy.

¨Sure thing,¨ agreed Ivana, ¨see you there.¨

¨I'm outta here,¨ announced Farham, a quiet but dependable veteran of both war and the Tournament. ¨See you guys Wednesday.¨

¨All right,¨ replied Gorn, ¨and I'm gonna hit the road too. See you, Anna.¨ He raised an eyebrow at her (since his mechanical eye didn't wink) to let her know that she was invited to the strategy session. They shook hands and parted.


	12. Scene 12

**Scene 12**

Gorn arrived at his apartment early, about 2 pm PST, having gained three hours teleporting to Vancouver from New York. Despite the bright, crisp fall day, he was tired and needed a nap. Since the advent of such things as teleporting all over the globe, sunlight-imitating lamps, and an increasing necessity for night work, biological sleep cycles had lost all sense of meaning. You slept when you felt like it and/or had time. He shut off his eyes and stretched out on the couch.

An abrupt knocking on the door wakened Gorn. Sensing the activity in his brain, his mechanical eyes switched on automatically and he noticed by the dusty yellow light filtering through the window that it was dusk. He got up, stretching, and padded over to the door. ¨Password?¨ he inquired.

¨Gorn is a galloping jackass. C'mon chief, let us in!¨ came Anna's cheerful reply. Us?

He opened the door and there were Anna and Ivana, together, which probably meant the former hadn't been able to wait two hours to spill the beans to the latter. Well, at least he'd already planned on involving Ivana in this. ¨Come in, ladies,¨ he said, holding the door for them and gesturing inside with an outstretched gorilla's arm. ¨If you're hungry, let's make some food first and then get down to brass tacks.¨ The town femmes fatale affirmed that they were in fact starving, and the three went to work preparing a nice large batch of pasta puttanesca, one of Anna's favorites. While cooking, they sipped beers from one of Vancouver's several world-class breweries and shot the bull.

The Dark Phalanx was of the rare breed of Tournament teams whose members were on friendly terms outside the arena, despite their absolute seriousness and military efficiency inside it. They all got along well, even the other two members, Farham and Nikita, who kept mostly to themselves, and a true bond of friendship hand developed between Ivana and Anna. With regards to Gorn, Ivana had always admired him, and he and Anna seemed to enjoy each others' company in an odd way, despite their philosophical differences.

After eating, they went to the living room to watch the last purple glow of light diminish over the dimly visible mountains of Vancouver Island to the west. Ivana broke the silence. ¨Sounds like Anna had an interesting week, Gorn.¨

¨That good news or bad news?¨ he asked cautiously. ¨Anna, what's up?¨

She proceeded to relate the contents of her interview from the day before (two interviews, if you counted the janitor) and concluded saying that she'd reached somewhat of an impasse and the best thing to do would be to review the video files of his match with Malcom on Deck 16. Gorn agreed and fired up his computer, obtaining all the studio camera feeds from the match thanks to HAL and setting up his apparatus to play the 10 or so different feeds simultaneously on the TV screen for the women to watch. He fast-forwarded through the first frag, and set the videos back to normal speed when he saw that they were getting close to the first time he had ambushed Malcom from above with the minigun. Running in and out of view of various different camera windows, they saw Gorn's recorded figure drop down to the lower rocket launcher, walk through the portal there, and then he disappeared; no screen had his position. A few moments later he dropped down into view of a different camera, just in time to hose down Malcom's back with the minigun.

¨Huh,¨ said Ivana, disappointed. ¨What bad luck. There's no camera there.¨

They fast-forwarded to about the middle of the match, where Gorn, trailing, had retaken control by killing Malcom from above in approximately the same position, after Malcom appeared to think that the rockets he'd fired down into the armor pit had come from way over by the lower rocket launcher instead of above. Once again, however, Gorn couldn't be seen at all.

¨You know, the third dumb mistake he made is going to look just the same,¨ said Gorn, frowning. ¨Without a camera to tell for sure, we might never know exactly what it was about my position that threw him off.¨ They pondered it in silence for a few minutes.

Ivana finally sighed, and said ¨Look guys, I still can't think of anything but we should be able to figure this out. I just have this weird feeling that there's something specific all three frags have in common.¨

¨You mean besides the fact that we can't see me at all?¨ Gorn joked bitterly.

¨HEY!¨

¨Yeah, Anna…?¨ ventured Ivana. ¨You uh…¨

¨Sorry, something just occurred to me. What if the relevant fact is that there is no camera in that spot?¨

¨How could it be?¨ demanded Gorn. ¨It's not like he needed cameras; he was _there_, and he did a great job of figuring out where I was the rest of the….¨ he trailed off, and his semi-expressionless face adopted a pretty good approximation of a puzzled look. ¨Hey, wait…¨

¨You get my drift, Cap'n?¨ said Anna, with a round note of satisfaction in her voice.

¨Seriously though,¨ said Gorn, shaking his head slowly, ¨that's impossible. The gladiators are given an absolutely strict equipment scan by the portal when they enter the arena; you know that.¨

Ivana looked lost. ¨You two mind telling me what the hell…¨

¨Wallhacks…¨ murmured Anna, mostly to herself.

¨What?¨ said Gorn.

¨Just something I read once. Ivana, what if Malcom were somehow receiving information from outside the arena, specifically, from someone watching Gorn's location on all those camera lines?¨

¨Which, as I said, is impossible,¨ noted Gorn.

Anna continued. ¨I think we could then assume that he didn't really know Deck 16 much after all, and his amazing prediction the rest of the match was, in essence, a bunch of hax0ring fag0try.¨

¨Seriously this time Anna, what the fuck _was_ that?¨

She blushed. ¨I told you, it's just something I read. So anyways, when Gorn left sight of the cameras, Malcom's 'friend on the outside couldn't help him, and Malcom got fragged.¨

Ivana shook her head. ¨You know, everything else I can think of makes even less sense, besides the possibility of extreme coincidence, but I don't really like it.¨

¨Me either,¨ agreed Gorn, ¨especially because of the fact that it's against Tournament rules. I don't really respect Malcom much as an opponent because of his big mouth, but to be honest cheating doesn't seem like his style. He thinks too much of himself to resort to that kind of thing. And then what could this possibly have to do with FenTech?¨

¨We could try probing around their facility for that separate database HAL mentioned,¨ suggested Anna.

¨Anna,¨ said Gorn incredulously, ¨when you say 'their facility you mean….?¨

¨FenTech.¨

¨And when you say 'try probing around?¨

¨Go there and, you know, probe them.¨

¨Anna,¨ Ivana said, exasperated, ¨as beneficial as insanity is for some gladiators, we need the ones on this team to be reasonably lucid.¨

¨Well, of course, but why tell me?¨ she asked innocently

¨Because what you just said is _insane_,¨ Ivana pointed out.

¨That is to say,¨ clarified Gorn, ¨it's impossible, so trying it would be insane.¨

¨So if it weren't impossible, you'd be willing to try it?¨ Anna asked him, making sure he understood that the question this time was serious.

¨Actually, no. You know how much Ivana and I love to explore every strategic angle in order to win, but this is going too far, and if you didn't have a personal grudge to satisfy, you'd agree.¨

¨C'mon Gorn, he's breaking the rules. Wouldn't you like to put a stop to such villainy?¨ Besides,¨ she added, ¨I'm going either way and it would be a shame if I got into trouble and one of you wasn't around to help me out.¨ Gorn just stared at her with his mouth open, trying to find a suitable way to describe how stupid this was. He suspected it wasn't possible.

¨I'll go,¨ Ivana said suddenly. ¨Something about this stinks, and I'm curious to find out what it is.¨

Gorn threw up his hands. ¨Fine, get yourselves arrested, or better yet killed, if what this Marshall said was true. But count me out.¨

Anna shrugged. ¨Sorry to hear it, but I can only get two in anyways, and your being a big ape might be an obstacle as well.¨ She turned to Ivana. ¨Are you 100 on this? I already told you about the kinds of things I've heard about this business….¨

Ivana grinned. ¨I always dreamed about fighting bad guys outside the arena, but police work isn't really my speed. But more importantly, I'm not going to leave you hanging out to dry and I trust you wouldn't be getting me into this if it was gonna get me killed. Uh, right Anna?¨

Anna nodded, her face having completed the transformation from its typical appearance of leg-pulling kidster to a stony serious gaze that showed hints of the Black Ops assassin hidden underneath. ¨Damn straight. Buckle up sister, we're going to New York tonight.¨

Gorn watched them leave with a feeling of helplessness, like the team he had founded was slipping away from him. After the door closed though, he found himself murmuring ¨Good luck….¨


	13. Scene 13

**Scene 13**

The Vancouver-to-New York translocation terminal was almost as busy at 8 pm as it was during the day, but the travelers had changed from men and women in business attire to uniformed watchmen, policemen, and a fair portion of dressed-up Vancouver socialites heading for adventure among New York's high-class nightlife. Anna and Ivana had to wait in a sizeable line, and it was nearly midnight Eastern Time when they finally arrived in the Big Apple. ¨Now what?¨ Ivana asked, a tone of apprehension in her voice. She looked like she was starting to give some serious thought to the logistics of the situation and realizing that it might be impossible.

¨We go to my place in Albany to prepare,¨ replied Anna. ¨Don't worry about getting in. I've got that figured out.¨ Ivana shrugged, unconvinced but not willing to argue since she didn't have any decent suggestions of her own. She followed Anna out of the cross-country section of the terminal and into the local wing, getting into a short line of other people going upstate.

Within minutes they were at the main terminal of Albany; from there, a fifteen-minute walk brought them to Anna's apartment, a cozy place in an old brick building that looked more like it belonged to a 20th-century radio hobbyist than a gladiator. There were old parts and wires spread around several tables in the living room, and reconstructed radios of all different kinds and eras adorned the rest of the apartment. Ivana knew the place well and loved its anachronistic ambience. She also knew that many of those radios did a lot more than just look interesting. Anna was an expert at retrofitting old devices with new receivers and transmitters so they could pick up or send phone and ´net traffic. These had the advantage of being generally difficult to trace, unlike every new electronic device sold in stores; they all came with tracking codes attached to their signal.

Upon entering, Anna walked purposefully through the living room and into her small training center, stopping in front of the equipment closet. She opened it and pulled all the workout and training clothes on the rack to the left side, twisting the dowel they hung on. Ivana watched with interest as a sizeable panel, maybe three feet square, popped out of the wooden right wall of the closet, revealing a compartment within. Despite their closeness, Anna had never told her about this. Her teammate turned to face her.

¨I've got some stuff in here that civilians aren't supposed to have…. gear, and information. I know we're friends, and I trust you, but the less you know the better for both of us. Ok? Most of it has nothing to do with what we're doing tonight anyhow.¨

Ivana nodded her understanding. ¨Mum's the word. I'll just go get a snack while you get the stuff together.¨

¨Thanks.¨

A few minutes later, whileIvana was munching on a microwaved bean burrito in the kitchen, Anna appeared with her arms full of gear. She carried a bundle of black clothes under one arm, and two equipment belts plus their Tournament team comm devices dangled from the other hand. She was already dressed up in Infiltrator gear – black, one-piece clothing that looked almost like a wetsuit but made from ¨soft kevlar¨, astretchy, flexible materialthat stopped most lower-caliber fire. It also had small interlocking plates of carbonium sewn into parts of the chest, back, legs, and arms. Ivana had never gotten the chance to use this kind of gear, although she'd read about it. It had sounded awesome. Now she could see that it looked awesome in real life.

Anna noted Ivana's impressed look and gave her an apologetic grin. ¨Sorry Ivana, there's only one of these, and you're too tall.¨ She tossed her teammate the clothes she held, which, upon closer inspection, looked like cold-weather neoprene bicycling gear. Ivana didn't say anything, but she must have had a what-the-hell-is-this look on her face, because Anna added hastily, ¨It's better than it looks. I added some soft kevlar pads in the thighs, chest, and back. Not ideal, but for someone with my history it pays to be a little paranoid.¨

Ivana sighed. ¨Right. But you're taking point. What have we got on the belts?¨

¨Mini-cutters, titanium cord, your standard big-ass knife, and…¨ she tapped a small canister next to the knife, ¨sleep spray. Make sure to aim it away from your own face.¨

Ivana took the belt as Anna handed it over. ¨Don't worry, I've used them before. Do you think we'll have to this time?¨

¨With luck, we won't need any of this stuff. But no harm being prepared.¨

¨No sidearm?¨

¨Too loud, and we're not going to kill anyone anyways.¨

¨Yeah. Hey listen, I've kept my mouth shut up to this point, but now I really have to ask… how do you propose to get us into the facility?¨

¨Just a sec.¨ Anna went into the living room and picked up two translocator beacon wrist launchers from the table. ¨We're getting in with these.¨

Ivana was disappointed. ¨C'mon Anna, you know their perimeter security will just detect us the moment we cross the wall. And anyways, where are the beacons?¨

Anna smiled triumphantly. ¨Where, indeed?¨ She tossed Ivana one of the launchers. ¨Put that gear on. I'll be waiting.¨ She touched a button on the launcher and was gone.

Ivana got over her surprise quickly, and jumped into the bicycling gear (at least Anna had removed the reflective strips), pulling on the black neoprene face mask that was rolled up in the pants before buckling on her belt and wrist launcher. She took a deep breath and punched the button to translocate.


	14. Scene 14

**Scene 14**

Ivana emerged to a faint popping noise that she know from the Tournament – it was the sound of some other physical material being instantly replaced (and destroyed) by her body. Gladiators liked to try and get a translocator beacon at an opponent's feet for an instant-kill 'telefrag', but when you didn't know what you'd just translocated into, it was a scary sound. She opened her eyes slowly, carefully, and saw…. leaves. Branches brushed her face. She looked down and realized that she was standing in a large pot, surrounded by the remains of some dense office plant. Parting the branches and stepping carefully out of the pot, she scanned her surroundings and saw that it was a circular lobby, dimly lit by nighttime runner lights, with a desk in the center and several other plants around the edge. The one to her right looked slightly mangled. Looking carefully around the desk, apparently searching for something, was Anna.

¨You hid translocator bacons in the _office plants_?¨

¨Yep. Told the receptionist I wanted to check 'em out because I used to be a botanist, and then waited 'til her back was turned. For all the genius scientists and engineers in this place, you'd think they would hire smarter help.¨

Ivana walked over to the reception desk to see what Anna was up to. ¨What are we looking for here?¨

¨Access keycard. The janitor leaves it around here someplace and I think it should get us to the part of this building where Malcom's doctor works. But they must have hidden it somewhere….¨

Ivana inspected the desk. It was pretty bare, except for the computer console built into the center, with a fold-down screen and detachable keyboard that stowed under the edge of the desk. She pulled out the keyboard carefully, on the lookout for anything that might be a camera or scanner, but it all seemed fairly straightforward. Feeling around under the desk where the keyboard had been, her hand brushed over a plastic sheath. She pulled a card out of it and held this up to show the ID picture to Anna. ¨Is this the janitor?¨

Anna inspected it. ¨Yeah, that's the one. Nice work. Let's put it in the ID slot over here by the translocation pad and see what happens.¨ They went around to the front of the desk and found a card reader labeled ¨STAFF ONLY¨. Ivana went to put the card in, but Anna said, ¨Wait a sec, Ivana?¨

¨Hm?¨

¨Give me your beacon first. I'll use the card and then you can just follow with your launcher. Wait 'til I clear you by the comm to come.¨

¨Good call.¨ Ivana handed over the beacon and card to Anna, who stepped on the pad in front of the reader and inserted the ID. The reader beeped and a series of options appeared on a touch screen next to the slot. They said:

OFFICE WING:

COMMERCIAL PERFORMANCE MODULE

COMMERCIAL MEDICAL MODULE

ADVANCED PERFORMANCE MODULE

MARKET RESEARCH MODULE

LAB WING:

INSUFFICENT CLEARANCE

EXIT

Anna gave her teammate the thumbs up and touched ¨Advanced Performance Module¨, disappearing immediately. Ivana tapped on her comm and waited. A couple of minutes passed. Just as she was starting to worry, Anna's voice announced ¨Area secure, Ivana. Your beacon is ready.¨ She translocated.

They were standing in an office, sparsely decorated, with a machined meteorite desk, work console, and a couple other chairs (presumably for visitors). Before Ivana could ask, Anna explained ¨I was going to call you in earlier, but I wanted to check out the office first, and once I was in I just brought you straight here. Anyways, this place is deserted.¨

¨Ah. So this is where Malcom's doctor works?¨

¨Yeah, unless I'm badly mistaken. Now, we need to figure out how to get on this computer. It's got a biometric matcher on the keyboard, and I'm not Doctor Kilgard. Can you think of anything?¨

¨Eh, I don't think so, but let's look around. Isn't espionage supposed to be your specialty?¨

¨**Was** my specialty, but things have changed since then. New matchers are different. I'm not sure how to override this one.¨

¨Hm.¨ Ivana frowned. ¨Bad luck.¨ She distractedly turned over some papers that were on the desk, and something caught her eye. It appeared to be a memo to Dr. Kilgard, and from the tone, it must have come from some higher ups at FenTech:

MEMO

To: Dr. Francis A. Kilgard

From: Robert Wall

Re: Project Metis

NOTICE: Project Metis, according to the observations of the NEG Bureau of Technological Ethics, has been found in violation of regulation 19.1275, and has summarily been ordered to cease all operations. Official work on the project is to be discontinued immediately, and all official records of research are to be destroyed. A check of your console will be made tomorrow to confirm compliance.

Ivana turned the memo around in her hands. Besides the intriguing message, it looked perfectly ordinary. ¨Hey Anna,¨ she said, ¨have you ever heard of the Bureau of Technological Ethics?¨

Anna, who had been busy muttering thoughts to herself about different ways to crack Matchers, waved her off. ¨Just a minute Ivana, I'm….¨ She looked up suddenly. ¨Hey wait, did you just say the Bureau of Technological Ethics?¨

¨Yeah, Kilgard's got an interesting memo here that mentions them. Maybe it's nothing, but take a look anyways… see what you think.¨ She handed the document to Anna, who scanned it rapidly, frowned, then read it again. ¨Can you make anything of that?¨ Ivana asked her.

¨Maybe, but it would help to have a lot more information. You remember that hippie commune that took responsibility for bombing a FenTech plant a couple years ago?¨

Ivana was surprised. ¨You mean, when you were in the Black Ops…? It has something to do with…¨

Anna cut her off. ¨Yeah, listen, I know there is quite a lot about that mission that I never told you, but I had my reasons, and now is a bad time to explain everything. Basically, the commune was supposedly also trying to contact the Bureau of Technological Ethics, and in the message they sent taking credit for that bombing, they called on the BTE to investigate FenTech. Somebody censored out that part of the message, but I got my hands on an original copy.¨

¨Wow. Do you think this is all related to the same project?¨

Anna shrugged. ¨Who knows?¨ I never learned much about what FenTech was doing, but it seems to me like there must be a connection.¨

Ivana sighed morosely. ¨We may never know. This memo is dated three days ago, so any information related to the project is sure to be gone by now. And if it has anything to do with Malcom, they'll have canceled his program, too.¨

Anna shook her head, a pensive look on her face. ¨I think you're wrong about that.¨

Ivana was puzzled. ¨Really? Why?¨

¨Listen, Ivana,¨ Anna said patiently, ¨The NEG, well, it's like a thousand-headed hydra, every head having a certain degree of independence and a slightly different idea about where the body is going. The mandating powers of all these damn government bureaus overlap so much that nobody really knows who gives the orders. On paper, the BTE may be able to tell FenTech to stop. But this company is contracted by the military, which has a lot more behind-the-scenes power than people think.¨

¨So you think the memo is just for appearances? That someone else is telling Kilgard to continue working on the project? How could you be sure?¨

Anna handed the memo back to her. ¨It's right here.¨

¨I don't understand. It says pretty plainly that the work is to be stopped and research destroyed.¨

¨Actually, no,¨ Anna countered with a smile. ¨Read it again and tell me what it really says.¨

Ivana started over, reading more slowly again, then she stopped and looked at Anna. ¨Wow, you're right. 'Stop _official_ work' and 'Destroy _official_ records.' It's practically telling Kilgard to continue unofficially.¨

Anna nodded. ¨This is what I've been looking for, and I believeit has to do with what Gorn is interested in as well. But now what?¨

¨We can forget about his console, if they are checking it,¨ Ivana pointed out. ¨But if he is actively working on this project, he'd want to have his work close by for use. Maybe he keeps the files on an external disk here in the office somewhere?¨

¨Hey, nice thinking,¨ Anna said, enthused. ¨Let's hurry though, we've been here too long already. Somebody's probably seen us on a security cam by now.¨ Sweating in her neoprene, Ivana had to agree that it was time to wrap up the excursion.

The two black-clad intruders went to work, inspecting every inch of the desk, chairs, walls, and even the wastebasket. Finally Ivana stopped and said ¨Let's think about this. If you were a brilliant doctor with a secret, where would you hide it?¨

¨I don't know; honestly, there might not be anything here. Maybe he takes it home with him. We don't even really know what we're looking for.¨ She sighed and picked up a simple plastic picture ID card that was sitting on top of a stack of papers. FENTECH LABORATORIES, it said, and had a picture of a hawkish-looking older man with the name Francis Kilgard underneath it. Anna frowned. ¨Where are you hiding your data, Doctor Kilgard?¨ she asked the picture.

At that moment, they heard footsteps in the hallway outside.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Anna stood, frozen, watching Ivana to see what she would do. The Dark Phalanx captain wasted no time thinking, ducking into the corner behind where the door would open and motioning for Anna to go behind the desk. No sooner had she done so than the door burst open and two guards in full SWAT gear and helmets entered, crouching behind their shock rifles, the taller and heavier one leading the way, and a lighter-built figure thatAnna guessed was a woman following.

¨Don't move!¨ the woman yelled. ¨Keep your hands where I can see them!¨ She stayed with her shock rifle trained at Anna, covering her squadmate, who moved in to cuff her. As soon as he lowered his shock rifle, Anna saw Ivana quickly slide out from behind the door, silently pulling the sleep sprayer out of her belt. Anna hastily looked back at the advancing guard, but it was too late – he'd caught her eye movement. He snarled and whipped up his shock rifle, blastingher in the chest as she desperately tried to dodge, and yelling ¨Your six!¨ at his squadmate. The beam knocked Anna down and stunned her, but she dimly saw the guard who had shot her turn aroundtowards Ivana, shock rifle ready.

-----------------------------------------------------------

As soon as she saw the guard raise his shock rifle to fire at Anna, Ivana leaped towards the woman from behind and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, discharging the sleep sprayer up under the woman's helmet shield into her face at about the same time she heard the other guard fire his shock rifle. Ivana's prey instinctively swung her shoulders to fling the unseen attacker off, but she calmly held on and the struggling stopped almost immediately as the woman went limp in her arms. Rather than let the body drop, she held it up and peered around the shoulder.

The male guard was facing them, unsure what to do, and Ivana used the opportunity to release one arm from her human shield's chest and snatch at the shock rifle that dangled limply in its shoulder strap. The other guard read her intention and tried to dive behind the desk, but she snapped off a one-handed shot from the hip that skimmed the top of the desk, slamming into his shoulder in mid-dive and knocking him over onto his back. Ivana quickly let her sleeping captive fall with a thud to the floor, and ran around the desk. The man was struggling to get to his knees when she ripped his helmet off and sprayed him full in the face with the sleep canister. He collapsed instantly.

She crouched in front of Anna and lightly shook her shoulders. ¨Anna! You ok?¨

Anna's eyes opened sluggishly and she struggled to move. ¨Yeah… just need… a hand….¨ she panted. Ivana breathed relief and hooked an arm under her friend's shoulder, lifting her up quickly.

¨Good thing they had those things set to stun and you're wearing armor, or you'd be waking up in jail.¨

¨Or dead. Let's _move_!¨

They stumbled out into the hall. Anna directed them towards the exit, and Ivana dragged her down the hallway to it as quickly as possible. She leaned Anna against the wall next to the translocation portal. ¨You going to be able to walk?¨

¨In a minute or so. I've walked away from worse.¨

¨Good. Give me the keycard and your beacon, and wait for my word on the comm to translocate out of here.¨

Anna nodded, unclipped her beacon, and fished the janitor's keycard out of her pocket. She didn't even have time to say ¨be careful,¨ and Ivana had disappeared through the portal. She propped herself up against the wall right next to the portal and went to unclip her sleep sprayer, ready to hit anyone who might come through, when she noticed with some amusement that somehow she was still clutching onto the office ID of Doctor Kilgard. She stuck it in her belt, thinking bitterly, _Might as well have something to show for the visit_.


	15. Scene 15

**Scene 15**

Ivana encountered no resistance in the round receptionist's office, but she hesitated at the touch-screen option to EXIT, thinking about what she might find outside. Maybe the two guards in SWAT gear were rapid-responders with a translocator link directly to the office, but the chance that no other forces would show up was practically nil. What if ten police cars were waiting outside?

Suddenly, her comm crackled to life, and to her surprise, instead of Anna, she heard Gorn's deep voice. ¨You girls going to come out of there, or do I have to come in and get you?¨

¨Gorn! Jesus, what are you doing here?¨

¨Saving you amateurs. I'm parked out front in a rig I borrowed and the sirens are getting closer, so let's GO!¨

Ivana punched the EXIT button with no more hesitation and found herself standing along a well-lit wall next to a street empty except for a familiar bearlike figure that was leaning on what appeared to be a large-wheeled motor scooter. Awesome. She tossed Anna's beacon onto the sidewalk and punched her comm. ¨You're clear, Anna!¨ The final word hadn't even left her mouth before Anna translocated in.

¨Hey, Gorn!¨ she said cheerfully, if a bit weakly. ¨Glad you could…. Oh my GOD! Is that the 'rig' you borrowed?¨

¨Shut up and get on!¨ he yelled frantically, sitting down and motioning for them to join him. Ivana sat on his lap and Anna stood on the foot board, both trying not to crack up despite the seriousness of the situation. ¨The engine's on,¨ Gorn said, ¨so gun it!¨

Anna cranked the throttle and the machine leaped forward, the front wheel lifting off the ground precariously as she fought to regain control. Gorn had apparently known what was coming and braced himself, because nobody slid off the back end. Soon they were cruising down the street at a speed that was definitely more than advisable for three people riding one motor scooter. However, it stayed as balanced as an arrow, and soon Anna roared into a corner, turning off the main street and into a suburban-looking neighborhood. Here the road was lined with large sycamores and sharply-cut grass, and the sirens began to fade behind them. ¨Do you know where you're going?¨ Gorn yelled at her over the rushing wind.

¨More or less…. we're heading for a small terminal I know of nearby. Say Gorn, where'd you get this kickass scooter?¨

¨It's military; they're good for sending messages in urban combat when radio isn't an option…. fast and quiet. Doesn't have a police-registered tracking device like civilian cars, either. You like it?¨

¨Well, it _is_ kind of small for three people…¨

¨I didn't have time to find anything else. Besides, any port in a storm, right?¨

¨Right,¨ she laughed, ¨It´s perfect.¨

¨Are we going to get off soon though?¨ asked Ivana. ¨I think Gorn's getting a…¨

¨Hey look,¨ commented Anna brightly, ¨here's the terminal!¨

They piled off and ran up to a clump of deserted green plastic-and-metal booths, painted with an insignia that said 'Terran Translocation Network'. Gorn stopped short, frowning. ¨You think we can go to the main Vancouver terminal with you two looking like that?¨

¨We can't go anywhere looking like this,¨ said Ivana. She looked around desperately, glancing at her watch. ¨Where do you find clothes at three thirty in the morning?¨

Anna shrugged. ¨This is a good neighborhood, so I assume the home security sucks around here. Just give me a few…¨ and she jogged off across a lawn towards one of the houses. Ivana thought she heard the faint buzz of a mini-cutter, and less than five minutes later, Anna was back carrying two pairs of jeans and two shirts. The only thing she could think of to say was, ¨these are for men.¨

¨So we'll be dykes. I always liked that disguise.¨ Anna tossed one set of clothes to her. When they were dressed and Gorn had stuffed their black outfits in his pack, he said ¨I've got the booth all set up. We're going to New York first… they track the traffic on all these terminals, but from there we'll get lost in the crowd of people going all over the world. You two ready?¨

Anna grinned. ¨Let's blow this popsicle stand.¨


	16. Scene 16

**Scene 16**

It was 2 am in Vancouver when they arrived. Human traffic at the main terminal had finally died down, reduced to a trickle of late-returning partygoers, travelers from other parts of the globe, and the odd scattering of misfits, who, like the three gladiators, did not have an apparent purpose which fit into any of the typical categories.

In spite of their newly-acquired presumable status as wanted criminals, they had not encountered any problems with police at all in the New York terminal. In fact, it had appeared that there wasn't even anyone looking for them there, which surprised Ivana, who had thought New York's finest to be a little better-coordinated. However, from her new perspective this suddenly became a good thing. Her companions thought so too. But they were all inclined to err on the side of caution, and agreed to head to a more private location to discuss the night's events.

Gorn, who knew the city best, led them on foot several blocks out of downtown towards the Strait. They continued in silence away from the central business district and into Vancouver's huge city park that wrapped around the University, buffering the cold, quiet Pacific from the noise and heat of the city. The gladiators walked several minutes through the park, turning down soft dirt trails that led through cedar and fir trees, a tranquil grove lit softly by lights scattered throughout – on the ground, in trees, and once in awhile on a pole. The place was maintained to feel like a forest with park-like accommodations, and Ivana had to admit that the ambience was enchanting.

They emerged from a loamy, meandering path onto a straighter, better-lit one lined with perfect cedar boles that suggested Roman columns. Ahead, the white gravel walkway entered a clearing of manicured grass, through which flowed a small stream, its banks lined with dark, rounded beach stones. An arched wooden bridge led them over the stream and towards a wooden gazebo in the center of the clearing, perched on a raised platform base and styled like a Japanese pagoda.

¨I come here sometimes to visit with my military buddies,¨ explained Gorn. ¨They say this spot is fairly clean of surveillance. It's a nice break from the city, too.¨ He gestured towards the wooden picnic tables under the gazebo. ¨Sit down, you guys. I'm curious to hear what happened.¨

As they sat, Anna addressed Gorn. ¨You'll get the full story in a moment. But first I want to ask you something.¨

¨Shoot.¨

¨What made you decide to come after us?¨

Gorn sighed. He had expected the question, and he suspected that Anna already knew the answer, more or less. She probably just wanted to hear him say it. ¨I got worried.¨

¨Worried about your team, right?¨ He was taken aback by her sudden anger. ¨Worried about how to win that coveted Tournament with two of your friends in jail?¨

¨No!¨ he said suddenly, now surprised by the intensity of his own response. Then more calmly, ¨No, that really wasn't it. I just got to thinking about something you said last week in Warsaw… that poking our noses into FenTech was my stupid idea. Yes, I brought it up because of the Tournament, but I should have known better than to dig up demons from someone else's past. I should have known that you wouldn't be satisfied with just trying to learn how to beat the Thunder Crash. I was worried because I felt responsible for getting you both into this mess.¨

Anna's look softened, but only a little. ¨Gorn,¨ she said sternly, ¨don't blame yourself for this. I'm not a child, I know that I'm responsible for my own actions. It wasn't you that flew off the handle and broke into FenTech's building… and for what? We didn't find anything solid, and now all three of us are probably wanted criminals.¨

¨You know what?¨ he remarked, ¨I'm glad you didn't find anything. As far as I'm concerned, this is over. The Tournament means a lot to me, but I'd rather lose it than lose my life.¨

¨Besides,¨ Ivanna pointed out, ¨We don't know for sure that the police know who we are. Our faces were heavily covered the entire time in that building, and as far as I know, we didn't touch any biometric identity Matchers.¨

¨True,¨ agreed Gorn, ¨but if anyone talks to Doctor Marshall about your visit before the break-in, they might easily be able to put two and two together.¨

Anna shook her head. ¨He won't give us away. I'd bet the Tournament on it.¨

Ivana frowned. ¨Why not? It would certainly be an unnecessary risk for him, protecting us.¨

¨I think he believes that I saved the life of someone close to him on the mission when I…. you know.¨

¨Went rogue?¨ Gorn asked quietly.

¨Yeah, that one.¨ An awkward silence followed, each of the three momentarily lost in their own thoughts, and Ivana and Anna began to huddle closer together on their bench for warmth. It was still September, but in the wee hours of the morning a chill had crept in, like the first breath of winter that lay waiting just around the corner. Gorn appeared not to notice at all, sitting motionless and impassive as if he himself were carved out of ice. Ivana finally spoke, just to break the silence. ¨You guys think it was odd, how easily we got away from the police?¨

Anna nodded. ¨Like they weren't even really trying. That's been bothering me, too.¨

¨I noticed,¨ said Gorn, ¨but it certainly doesn't bother me. We were lucky enough to get away without being followed.¨

¨Yes,¨ Ivana began, ¨but doesn't it seem…¨ She cut off, staring past Gorn's shoulder down the path from which they had come. ¨Someone's coming.¨ The figure was still a hundred meters or so off, but even at that distance and in the dim light, she could see that it carried a weapon.

¨Think he's just out taking a stroll?¨ Anna asked tersely.

¨Yeah, at 4 am, with a shock rifle,¨ replied Ivana, an edge of worry creeping into her voice. ¨And we're unarmed.¨

The person continued to stride purposefully towards them, as if unaware that they had seen it. Now about 50 meters away, they could see that it was a man wearing some kind of elaborate armor. ¨Better find out now what his intentions are,¨ muttered Gorn. ¨Be ready to run.¨ He stood up and waved at the figure. Without pausing, it crouched, shouldering the shock rifle, and shot two secondary fire charged bubbles at them. In the same instant, all three reflexively dove off different sides of the gazebo through its windows.

Ivana met the ground shoulder first and rolled, feeling more than hearing the shock combo explosion that shattered the gazebo behind her, sending knife-sized splinters whizzing past her head. A sharp impact, like a fist in the back of her thigh, told her through the adrenaline haze that she had been struck, but she had no time to assess the damage. Somehow she found her feet and flung herself behind the wooden platform base of the gazebo as a shock primary beam scorched the grass behind her.

Rolling to her feet once again, Ivana saw that Anna, who had dived off the far side of the gazebo from their attacker, was already crouched behind it. ¨You're hit!¨ she yelled at Ivana.

¨I know! Is it bad?¨ She quickly knelt and stretched her leg out behind her for Anna to inspect as another shock combo detonated to the side of the structure, almost knocking her over.

¨Grit your teeth!¨ Anna said, and Ivana mentally braced for the jerk and flash of pain as Anna yanked the splinter out. She showed it to Ivana, a ten-inch stake that was wet with her blood up to a full three inches from the tip. Ivana suppressed a shudder andtried not to think about it. ¨We need to get out of here right now,¨ she said. ¨This structure is almost toast, and pretty soon he's going to figure out that we're not armed.¨

¨Agreed. Where's Gorn?¨

¨Didn't see him. Maybe he made it into the woods.¨

¨Yeah. That's where we're going, too.¨ She moved to a crouch, ready to run. ¨I'll go first, to draw his fire. Shut up, you're the injured one,¨ she said fiercely when Ivana opened her mouth to protest. ¨Split off from me, but not too far and I'll circle back to you in the woods.¨ Her words were punctuated by a combo blast almost directly overhead that deafened them both and left Ivana with spots swimming in front of her eyes. When she blinked, Anna had already started to move. ¨Goddammit,¨ she muttered, stumbling to her feet and preparing to sprint across the grass.

--------------------------------------------------------

Gorn stepped over the body of the assassin whose neck he had snapped, questions crowding on the edge of his brain that he had no time to ponder. Questions such as why heavily-armed professional killers wearing full plated carbonium armor had found them in the middle of a park in Vancouver at night, and why one of them, at least, was outfitted with a full complement of replacement body parts, similar to himself. He had practically run straight into the other assassin, who had been creeping through the woods around the gazebo, presumably trying to flank them. This meant there could be more.

He weaved quickly through the trees alongside the white gravel pathway, keeping an eye on the shock balls that flew by to his right. He needed to take out this first man, who was keeping Anna and Ivana pinned down, before anyone else got to them. Finally he spotted the man, crouched halfway behind a particularly large tree by the path about fifteen yards ahead. He circled a little wider, trying to move as quickly and silently as possible, praying that he was in time.


	17. Scene 17

**Scene 17**

Ivana stumbled into the woods, her leg threatening to buckle under her. By some providence, she had not been hit during the few moments without any sort of cover that to her had seemed like an eternity. Now she moved more deliberately, threading through the moss-covered trunks as quickly as she could with her untrustworthy leg, which was beginning to send hot fiery bolts of pain through her with every step. Now that she finally had time to assess the overall situation, Ivana was having to fight down a rising sense of panic. She was fleeing, injured and unarmed, in a place unfamiliar to her, pursued by a person – or maybe several people – that wanted to kill her. This wasn't the Tournament; there were no matter reconstructors here. She could _die_.

She paused behind a large spruce tree, trying to calm her breathing and think. She couldn't hide in these woods – there were dim, but well-lit enough to see anyone and there was no bushy understory. Running, she was prey – dumb and predictable, easy pickings. She had to do something unexpected, which meant attacking. Ivana knew fifteen different ways to kill someone with her bare hands, and she'd used all of them in the Tournament. Gun or no gun, she was a Gladiator, one of the most dangerous people in the world, and she was _not_ going to die here!

Peeking around the trunk of the spruce, Ivana's mental pep talk came to a screeching halt. There were two large figures in carbonium plate armor and helmets creeping through the forest, peering around and up into the trees, sweeping their weapons along with their line of sight. One of them carried a rocket launcher, the other a shock rifle.

Shot through with icy dread, Ivana huddled back against the tree. Both had yellowish mechanical eyes, like Gorn. But judging by the fluidity of their movements, they were clearly human rather than combat 'bots. What was this? Ivana regretted that she would never know. Clearly, she was going to die. Being an experienced gladiator unfortunately also meant that she knew an impossible situation when she saw one. What had happened to Anna? Was she already dead? No matter, now. Blood trickled down her leg, soaking the stolen jeans. She waited, listening intently, ready to spring when they were close enough. With luck, one of the bastards would go down with her.

They never arrived. Out of the corner of her right eye, maybe twenty yards off, Ivana saw a flicker of movement, like a grey shadow sliding behind a tree. It had looked like a man, and a large one too, almost Gorn's size. But how could someone that big move so silently? An instant later, it moved again – adjacent to her, towards her pursuers. The man, if that was what it was, moved more quietly than a ghost. Ivana began to suspect that if she were its target, she would already be dead. A friend, then?

She peered cautiously around the tree again, and regretted it immediately – one of the two armored assassins spotted her the instant she did, and with a yell fired a rocket at the ground to the side of her tree. To avoid the explosion, Ivana had to dive the other way, feeling the heat of the blast against her legs. Rolling awkwardly in the loamy soil as she landed, she scrambled to get behind another trunk and get a peek at the positions of her attackers. They were running towards her now, and as the one with the shock rifle fired a shock ball where she had dodged, she was forced to dive away in the same direction to avoid the blast of the combo, once more frantically seeking cover.

Realizing she would soon run out of options, Ivana prepared to charge her pursuers, who through the smoke and dim light didn't seem to have an exact lock on her position. Just then, she heard Anna's voice yell from behind the attackers, ¨Hey you stupid motherfuckers, over here!¨ They wheeled, one firing off a rocket in the general direction of the voice. It exploded against a tree trunk before reaching Anna, and she taunted, ¨Is that your best? Try a bigger gun!¨ Oddly, the two seemed unsure of what to do, pausing as if pondering the decision.

In that instant, the grey shadow that Ivana had seen earlier darted out from behind a tree trunk right next to the man with the rocket launcher, coming at him with a flying kick in the back that landed with a resounding crash of metal and sent him flying towards his partner. At the sound, the other man spun and, seeing a large body flying at him, reflexively nailed it with a shock primary beam. The rockets-man fell with a thud, unmoving. Recovering quickly from the surprise, the other turned his shock rifle towards the grey shadow, which had flitted behind another tree. Calmly, the assassin shot a shock secondary ball just to the side of the tree. It all happened so quickly, but Ivana still had time to think _he'll never escape that blast…._

_CRACK!_

The assassin pitched forward, firing his shock primary shot intended to detonate the combo off into the air. Ivana leaped out from her cover towards him, unsure of what had happened but prepared to take his weapon; instead she stopped and smiled in pure relief. Coming through the trees ahead, a shock rifle held at the ready, was Gorn. Anna melted out of the woods into his path to join him. ¨Nice shot, chief,¨ she said quietly.

The three gathered around the two fallen assassins. Thanks to their heavy-duty armor, both were alive but thoroughly stunned – the shock rifles had been cranked up to their highest setting, enough to kill almost anyone in one shot. Gorn bent down to inspect the assassins, but Ivana suddenly said, ¨Wait. Did you see the guy? The uh….¨

¨What guy?¨ asked Gorn.

¨The other guy, the one that was here. He kicked one off these…¨ she indicated the unconscious assassins.

¨Good guy or bad guy, Ivana?¨ Gorn asked hurriedly, readying his shock rifle.

¨Good guy, I think. Didn't you see him?¨

Gorn and Anna gave each other a questioning look. ¨What did he look like?¨ Anna asked her.

¨I didn't see him very well. He moved really fast. And quiet. Almost like a ghost.¨

¨Hm.¨ Gorn didn't say more than that, but she could tell he didn't believe her. ¨It doesn't matter now anyways,¨ he said, ¨he's gone. Let's focus on what we've got here.¨ She nodded agreement. There would be plenty of time to talk about this later. Right now, she was bleeding.

Anna reached down and appropriated the shock rifle that one of the men still clutched. He moaned, his hands twitching feebly. Anna snorted in disgust, raised the shock rifle, and dispassionately shot him. He lay still.

¨Anna?¨ asked Ivana, surprised at her friend's sudden, uncharacteristic coldness, ¨do you think he'll, uh, survive that?¨

¨I doubt it. But we only need one to question; he was just a liability.¨ She stared straight through Ivana. ¨Why?¨

¨Wow. I mean, um, no reason.¨

¨Good. Take this rifle and stand guard, there may be more. Gorn, can you help me get this guy's helmet off?¨

¨They don't come off,¨ he said absently. ¨It's not a helmet.¨

¨What do you mean, it's not a helmet? It's made of carbonium, and it's on his head. Now we need to talk to this guy, ask him….¨

¨Anna,¨ he insisted, ¨that IS his head.¨

¨What are you trying to say?¨ she demanded. ¨They're not 'bots. You saw them move.¨

¨No,¨ Gorn agreed, his face troubled, ¨they're not bots. They're like me…. modified. Only more so.¨

¨Well, I'm taking a closer look either way,¨ said Anna. She crouched next to the fallen assassin, who was breathing a little more now, if jerkily, and struggling to move. Anna leaned towards his metal face to inspect it more closely. Once you knew what was going on, it was obvious it wasn't a helmet – fit too tight, with plates that covered all the contours of the man's skull. His yellowish mechanical eyes stared ahead, unblinking and unseeing, waiting for the brain to recover enough from the shock to begin bombarding it with visual information once again. The rest of his body appeared to also be custom-fitted with titanium and carbonium skin rather than wearing an armored suit, however this turned out to be an illusion caused by the superior form in which it fit his body. Clearly, the armor had been custom-made for only one person.

The yellowish eyes flickered and blinked, and the man craned his head to sit up. Anna stood up quickly and put her foot on his chest, pressing down with all her weight. ¨Don't move, you goddamned freak of nature, or we will shoot you without hesitation. Your buddies are dead, and you will be too, if you don't answer my questions. You hear me, you walking insult to God?¨ The man stared at her, giving no indication that he'd heard anything. ¨Gorn, shock rifle.¨

He passed the gun to Anna, which she pointed directly at the assassin's face before talking again. ¨Let me refresh your memory of something, you pathetic 'bot wannabe. You and your jackass buddies just tried to kill me and my friends. Given that fact, I wouldn't feel the least bit sorry turning that ugly head into a brand new alloy… made of carbonium and brains. I think I'll call it carbranium. So answer the fucking questions! Who do you work for?¨

This time the man responded, though perhaps not in a way they'd hoped or expected. He wheezed once, then again. After a few more fitful noises, it became clear that he was laughing. It was a sound made by a human throat, not synthesized, but somehow also totally mechanical, emotionless, like a machine's idea of a laugh. It made Ivana shiver. Then he spoke, his voice as cold and flat as that horrible laugh.

¨Interferers,¨ he said. ¨You have no idea what we are doing. You will be eliminated for standing in our way. Don't worry, it won't be long now.¨ He wheezed as if to start laughing again, and Anna made carbranium.

--------------------------------------------------------------

After Ivana had thrown up, she turned to face her comrades. ¨I know,¨ she said, ¨I'm a gladiator. I see that kind of thing all the time in the Tournament so it shouldn't bother me. But it's not real! Well, I mean, it is, but it doesn't have real consequences.¨

¨It's normal, Ivana,¨ Gorn reassured her. ¨I don't like to see real death either. But you might say that I already have plenty of experience with it.¨

¨Ditto,¨ said Anna. ¨I'm sorry Ivana, I know that seemed very cold, but the man had to be killed. You understand, right?¨

¨Yeah,¨ she replied shakily, ¨I suppose I do. Let's forget it, okay? It's just too bad we didn't figure out who those guys were.¨

¨They are the Corrupt.¨

All three gladiators jumped at the unfamiliar voice, turning just in time to see a man emerge from the trees with no more sound than the wind might in ruffling a woman's hair. He was medium-sized, but built like a gladiator – solid and big-chested. He wore a full suit of hard Kevlar armor – outdated, but an excellent design, made of cloth and interlocking plates that covered his entire body, colored dirty grey and decorated with more strips of grey cloth that suggested urban camouflage. The man wore no helmet on his pale, shaved head, and his flinty grey eyes flashed alertly over a triangular metal grill that covered the part of his face where his mouth and nose should have been, fitting snugly into the high neck of his armor.

Anna pointed her shock rifle menacingly at him. ¨If I don't get a name in two seconds, I swear to fucking God…¨

¨Hunter.¨

¨ You with these goons?¨

¨Hardly.¨

¨Chatty, aren't you? So are you against them, or just taking a stroll around the park?¨

¨You might say that I have made it my life's work to be against them. Will that suffice? I prefer conversing without a weapon in my face.¨

¨Anna,¨ interjected Ivana, ¨this is him! This is the guy I tried to tell you about. He helped us.¨

Anna kept the shock rifle raised, eyeing the man suspiciously, deciding. Finally she took it down. ¨Good enough for me. Where you from, Hunter?¨

¨Listen,¨ he said seriously, addressing them all, ¨I would like to tell you about that, and who these…_people_ are – but we need to get out of here right now. When Corrupt fall, they know right away, and more come.¨

¨How soon?¨ asked Gorn.

¨Any minute now, from the closest Terminal. I can help guarantee your safety for awhile, if we can get to Victoria.¨

Ivana looked at her teammates. ¨Uh, guys? Maybe we could take them, but this isn't the Tournament, so in the event that we can't, the consequences would be more permanent. As captain of this squad, I'm calling a strategic retreat.¨

Gorn grimaced. ¨Seconded, and while I do hate running, I know how to get us out of here. Let's bind up that wound of Ivana's and get going.¨

He led them back to the destroyed pagoda, Ivana limping along with support from Hunter. In the white gravel walkway, she noted the crumpled form of the first attacker they had seen, figuring Gorn had taken care of him. Instead of going down the path from where they had come, Gorn led them past the pagoda and back into the woods, taking a faint trail that gradually sloped downhill. Ivana heard birds singing, and realized the forest was beginning to lighten – it was morning.

After a few minutes of moving down the trail as quickly as they could, considering Ivana's condition, Anna's curiosity got the best of her. ¨So, big fella,¨ she said, ¨you have a magic translocator booth tucked away in these woods somewhere?¨

¨Not exactly. Today we'll be making our dramatic escape in something a little… slower.¨

¨Thanks, that really explains it.¨

¨Hey, I didn't want to spoil the surprise, but since you insist… we're going to catch a boat to Victoria.¨

¨A boat? Jesus, Gorn, that could take hours! And wasn't Victoria destroyed?¨

¨They'll never expect us to use something so low-tech. And Victoria's only mostly destroyed. Look, we're already getting close…¨

It was true. Through the trees up ahead, Ivana could see the glint of delicate early-morning light off the steely waters of the strait and she thought she heard the lapping of gentle waves against the rocky shoreline. In a few more minutes, they had arrived at a small rock cove, a protected inlet maybe twenty meters wide with a two-pronged wooden dock attached to the rocks on either side, and a small sailboat moored in the middle. The curved white prow was emblazoned with the words ¨The Script Kitty.¨

¨Hey,¨ commented Ivana, ¨Isn't this stealing?¨

¨Yes,¨ Gorn admitted, ¨but we're going to leave the boat where someone will find it, and they'll get it back. I don't feel so bad, since we have no choice.¨

¨Yeah, but do you know how to sail?¨


	18. Scene 18

**Scene 18**

The boat's electrified moorings seemed no small obstacle at first, but Anna knew a trick to short them out using the shock rifles, and after that the mini-cutters that Gorn still had in his pack along with their other gear did the trick.

They set sail at dawn. Gorn and Hunter, who both knew a thing or two about sailing, handled the technicalities with the women pitching in where they could. Soon they were on a steady course for Vancouver Island, Gorn estimating a five- or six-hour trip to Victoria.

Despite the throbbing pain in her leg, which Hunter had done an expert job of bandaging up, Ivana was in one of the best moods of her life. Perhaps it was just the idyllic setting, or the surrealness of everything, but she felt curiously elated; truly glad to be alive. Thinking about it for awhile, she decided that her desire for excitement and adventure, which had been her reason for entering the Tournament in the first place, had become so severely dulled and desensitized by facing repetitive, meaningless, non-permanent death that it had been a long time since anything had really thrilled her or captivated her imagination. Once you got good at the Tournament, it was all about winning, just like any other sport. This could be enjoyable in and of itself, but hadn't she always wanted more than just that?

After about an hour of silence in which the motley crew of The Script Kitty sat lost in their thoughts, Anna decided it was time to get some answers out of Hunter. She motioned for him to come down from his position on the bow, where he sat watching the waves, and talk to her. After a couple tries with increasingly animated gesticulations, he walked over and sat down amidships next to her.

¨Yes?¨

¨Tell me about the Corrupt.¨

He sighed. ¨To explain what I know about the Corrupt and their origins, I would end up recounting much of my own story as well. So I may as well tell it all to you.¨

¨Oooh, I like stories. Hang on; the others will want to hear this.¨

¨I'm listening,¨ said Ivana, who was sitting nearby with her legs dangling over the side of the boat.

¨Me too,¨ added Gorn. ¨I can easily cock an ear and keep this boat on course at the same time.¨

¨Well, then,¨ began Hunter, ¨My involvement with this mess which you all are also somehow involved in began during the Skaarj wars. However, the circumstances of my life which caused me to arrive at that point date back much further.

¨My family lived in Canada, near an oil-shale refinery, one of the most notoriously polluted in the world. I was born with extremely weak lungs, and only lived through infancy with the constant support of a breathing apparatus. I was unfit for real physical work even as an adult, so when the GDF was formed and began recruiting heavily at the beginning of the Skaarj Wars, I could not serve.

¨I really wanted to do something for my nation, though. You all remember what it was like in those days… everyone pulling together to fight the common enemy, everyone proud to be working towards a victory for the human race. I begged the recruiters to give me some job, any job in the GDF, and said that I would gladly work for them as an office monkey. Apparently my petitions reached other ears, because a couple months later I was offered to take part in an experimental new treatment for recuperation of damaged lungs… as a test subject, of course. What I didn't know when I signed the agreement was what the treatment actually entailed. But I soon found out.

¨The 'recuperation of damaged lungs' research was a front – it hid a much more extensive, secret, and totally unregulated program by the GDF to pursue methods of 'improving' humans so thatthey could survive without special gear on other planets we had colonized, other planets where we were at that time fighting the Skaarj. For most places, this meant at least some modification of the lungs, but it certainly didn't stop there. People had to be 'designed', which is to say bioengineered, to survive in a variety of different environmental conditions… places with very high- or low-pressure atmospheres, or very little water, or extreme heat or cold… you get the idea. It would have made living on other planets a lot cheaper, and given us a big advantage against the Skaarj. All the military had to do was find the most unethical and greedy bioengineering firm out there and contract them to do the research.

¨Almost all the experiments were failures….. _horrendous_ failures. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that I have seen many a test subject pleading with the scientists to end his or her life. I quickly reached the conclusion that I would never be allowed to leave there alive after what I'd seen. I considered trying to escape, but the facility was tighter than a maximum-security prison.¨

¨Did they experiment on you?¨ Anna interjected to ask. ¨Is that what happened to your mouth?¨

Hunter looked at her curiously. ¨Not very tactful, are you? Well, it's okay… I said I'd tell you everything. I was one of the few successes in the entire program. Maybe because my lungs were weak to start with, they did not reject the treatment like the other subjects. Who knows? At any rate, I can survive in very argon-rich environments. Big deal!¨

¨How did you get out?¨ Ivana asked him.

¨Luck. The facility I was in was destroyed during the Siege, and almost everybody in it died. Somehow I was spared, and I staggered out of the wreckage and went into hiding. I knew that I would be accounted dead and could start my life over again. But from that moment on, I swore to myself that I would dedicate the rest of my life to fighting that bioengineering firm and the abominations that they, in their arrogance, have created, as well as anyone else who thinks they can 'improve' human beings without their consent. I started training and calling myself Hunter, and that has been my name ever since.¨

¨One thing I still don't understand,¨ said Anna, ¨is your weak lungs. Did they fix that too?¨

Hunter laughed bitterly. ¨The technology came out right after the Skaarj Wars. Lots of injured veterans were getting body parts modified by mechanical means. Like your friend, I am guessing? Anyhow, that's what this thing on my face is. There's a small pump that assists my breathing in the armor's chestplate, and I only take off this air filter to eat. It's pretty great, really. There's even a mechanism that ejects the apparatus from my face if it senses that I am going to throw up.¨

Anna looked impatient. ¨And the Corrupt? I'm assuming it doesn't need to be mentioned that this bioengineering company you swore to destroy is FenTech.¨

He nodded. ¨They have changed their name, but it is certainly still them, and they still have a lot of ties to the military. After the war, they were soon up to their old tricks again, this time collecting severely injured and disabled veterans, promising to return all their former abilities to them through mechanical enhancements. Ostensibly, this is true… but they do something else to these people. Not one of them resumes a civilizn life afterwards – they are all enlisted as secret operatives of some kind in the military, and many simply disappear… but I know they're not really gone. They work for someone, doing the dirtiest of the dirty work. You saw that thing in the woods. They're not human anymore. Their will has been corrupted somehow… they are slave warriors. I watch their movements and hunt them when I can, hoping to find a lead deeper into FenTech.¨ He turned to Anna. ¨I know who you are, Anna. You did a great thing, you know.¨

¨Yeah, right,¨ said Gorn disgustedly. ¨Every rogue that thinks they know better than their commander is a hero.¨ But for some reason, he no longer sounded so sure.

For the rest of the boat ride, Anna told Hunter the story of the involvement of the Dark Phalanx with the mystery of Malcom and his connection to FenTech. He listened intently, eyebrows darkening over his hard grey eyes as she progressed. ¨I'm beginning to suspect, after hearing your story, that this may all related to the same secret project – Project Metis, according to that memo we read,¨ Anna told him. ¨The fact that they seem to have called off the police and instead sent assassins after us clearly shows that they want no official or public knowledge of it, which has only made me all the more interested in finding out what the heck they're up to. Even if my teammates don't want to look any further – and I certainly wouldn't blame them – I myself am going to continue. You know, you and I could work together.¨

¨Anna, you realize you do have other obligations…¨ Ivana started to remind her.

¨Oh ferchrissakes, don't worry. I'll finish the season,¨ Anna promised irritably. ¨We'll get that precious trophy.¨ Ivana felt a little ashamed, so she didn't press the issue.


	19. Scene 19

**Scene 19**

Gorn's estimate of their travel time to reach Victoria proved quite accurate, and by midday they had rounded the point of Vancouver Island and were drifting slowly into what used to be the city harbor. Well… geographically speaking, it could still be considered a harbor, but the city that defined it as such no longer existed. Victoria, the once-sparkling cultural metropolis where Asia had taken root in western North America, had been so completely decimated during the Seven-Day Siege that nobody had even bothered to rebuild it yet. It didn't make economic sense, with Vancouver booming right next door. Its days as a prime destination for cultural, architectural, and natural scenery had ended forever.

Still, oddly, thought Gorn, the city had managed to find some measure of melancholy beauty in its sad ruin. No longer the stark, smoking wasteland that he had first seen when he moved to Vancouver after the Siege, the visual landscape had softened; changed. The blackened remains of buildings lining the water were now adorned with mosses and lichens, there were grasses and leafy plants clamoring up through the pulverized cement streets and walkways, and he even saw a few cedar saplings clinging to the rotting wood of the docks, nourished slowly by the decomposed remains of their ancestors. Tickled by the sunshine, the ghost of the old city stretched itself, sending a fresh breeze across the bay that carried a faint twittering of birdsong. Despite its eerie emptiness, Gorn found the scene oddly comforting, perhaps because it proved that the destruction wrought on the world by man or the Skaarj could sort itself out, just given a little time alone.

¨Gorn!¨ Anna's impatient voice cut through his reverie. ¨You sure this place wasn't all destroyed? And where are we going to go now that we're here?¨

He allowed silence to reign again for a moment before responding, not taking his eyes off the shore. ¨Warsaw.¨

¨_How_, for fuck's sake? Do you honestly believe there's a working Terminal here? Or are we going to steal a bigger boat and sail around the horn? Can I be first mate?¨

Gorn heard Ivana snicker. Ignoring the caustic sarcasm, he replied calmly, ¨Like I said, the city's only mostly destroyed. Hunter's suggestion to come here was a good one…. there's a token GDF installation on the outskirts with a translocator portal that can get us back into the land of the living.¨

¨Okay, but why Warsaw?¨

¨In short, because there are people in Warsaw that I know I can trust.¨

¨People from the GDF?¨ she asked warily.

¨Yes, mostly.¨

¨Remind me again who it is that contracts FenTech? For some odd reason I can't remember, but I could swear it was relevant here.¨

This time it was not Gorn, but Hunter that responded. ¨Not all the people in the forces are bad, Anna. It can be dangerous to trust the real higher-ups, I'll give you that, but I've found that a smart and discreet soldier can be one of the best friends to have in hard times.¨

¨_I've_ found,¨ she said bitterly, ¨that smart people inexplicably lose that quality as soldiers, and that none of them are really your friends.¨

Gorn passed on the invitation to argue. Her attitude was somewhat understandable given that she'd been in the Black Ops. In that world of secrecy and political intrigue, you really couldn't be sure who your friends were. ¨Do you trust me, Anna?¨ he asked her.

She looked uncomfortable. ¨Well… yeah. I really do, if you want to know.¨

¨Well, my friends in Warsaw are people like me. If you trust me with anything, trust me to know that they can be trusted. I trust there's no problem with that?¨ He poked her in the ribs playfully.

Anna tried to continue looking pissed off, but it proved impossible and she cracked a stifled grin. ¨Whatever, meathead. Hey, we're going to hit that dock!¨

Hunter sprang back to the tiller and swung them away just in time. ¨Where do you want to pull in?¨ he asked Gorn.

¨See that dock up ahead? It looks pretty solid still… we'll tie off there.¨

They eased the boat in, careful not to scrape the rocky bottom, and attached it to one of the dock's rusted-out metal posts, then they disembarked and navigated the half-rotten planks carefully to reach the shore. The cracked cement grade that dipped down to greet them looked to Gorn like the former private boat launch of some resort or condo complex, now a formless pile of bricks and cement with rebar sticking out at odd angles. He pulled the shock rifle off his pack and addressed the others. ¨I seriously doubt we were followed, but there's no point in being stupid. I would suggest that we advance in Delta formation.¨ He winked at Ivana. ¨Just pretend this is DM-Tempest.¨

¨Wait a minute,¨ intervened Hunter, ¨there is something you need to know. People inhabit this city. I know this because it is my home, too. But the others aren't like me… they're harmless transients; they farm and fish and scrape by, and many are my friends. I would hate to see one get hurt.¨

¨Thanks for the heads up,¨ Ivana said. ¨We'll look for the carbonium armor before shooting. That's an order, by the way,¨ she directed at her squadmates.

Hunter nodded. ¨Good.¨ He offered his hand to Anna. ¨This is where I leave you. You are going to want to head north-east, and I am heading west along the water. Don't worry; I am sure we will meet again.¨

Anna gave him a warm smile. ¨I certainly hope so. You can find me through the Tournament if you need to, and if you ever get tired of living in a pile of rocks, I've got a lonely couch out in Albany.¨

Hunter's crinkled eyes indicated that he might be smiling. ¨Thanks, although my accommodations aren't as bad as you think. Come look for me after you win that Tournament.¨ He waved at Gorn and Ivana. ¨Go well.¨ Then the ghostly grey figure ducked under a fallen beam between two buildings and was gone.

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The trio continued through the twisted rubble in silence awhile after leaving Hunter, with Gorn in the lead and concentrating on route-finding, and Anna helping a limping Ivana through the ruin. The women could not help gazing around with interest. The damage which had been inflicted on the city was so total in some places that it crossed the line from structural to geologic. They skirted gaping craters of cinders and glass, fused from all the materials of the city – rock, soil, brick, and cement – by the extreme heat of the Skaarj energy weapons. They walked alongside chasms in the earth; long cracks running all through the city that appeared to contain only abyssal blackness and no bottom, until they found places where fallen rubble had formed a bridge across.

Throughout it all, more traces of the renewed life that they had spotted from the bay continued to show themselves. Ivana even thought she saw a vegetable garden on the ground floor of a large brick building, glimpsed through a crack in what used to be its walls. But they moved on, and she did not investigate.

Due to the difficulty of the terrain they moved slowly, and several hours had passed by the time they began to get clear of the center of the city and the most highly impacted zone. Gorn moved more quickly and confidently, leading them down one broad road that took them straight away from the urban area, then turning right on a minor street that ran parallel to it. Presently, they sighted their objective up ahead – a small, unremarkable cement structure, barely more than a bunker with windows, that stood out for the simple fact that it was completely undamaged – therefore, new. As they neared it, Gorn suddenly halted and pushed his palm back at the women to indicate that they stop. ¨Something's not right.¨

Ivana took his word without asking for an explanation, and issued some quick orders to her teammates. ¨Okay guys, delta formation – look sharp. Gorn, you've got point.¨

They spread out in a V, creeping along the road, checking all angles of approach, but nothing showed itself. They gained the entryway to the edifice without incident – and that was when Gorn spotted the soldier. He was lying restfully on his side next to the entrance; head reclined on his outstretched arm, for all the world like a drunk passed out peacefully on the street… except for the neat hole through the side of his head, and the pool of blood that surrounded it on the ground. Gorn's gaze caught Ivana's attention, and she followed it to the body. _Fuck._

She gave Gorn a significant look and two simple hand signals indicating that they proceed cautiously through the metal door, which was slightly ajar. Anna caught the orders as well and followed, barely pausing when she noticed the corpse.

Inside was a soldier's entryway, a simple room with lots of hooks for equipment and names over each one. With Ivana leading, they proceeded into a short hallway with a closed door on each side; upon inspection these turned out to be a communications room and the translocator station they had been searching for – both deserted. Confronted with another door at the end of the hall, Ivana stopped. She sniffed the air, and gave Anna a questioning look. _Chicken_, her squadmate mouthed. Before she could give any further orders, Gorn strode forward and kicked the door open with a mighty _CLANG,_ continuing through it without waiting for Anna and Ivana. The only thing for them to do was follow behind him for backup.

The small mess hall that they entered was quiet, though it appeared this was a recent development. A group lunch, most likely excluding only the one unfortunate sentry that they had discovered outside, had been rudely interrupted. Plates of chicken and rice adorned the table, most overturned, never to be consumed by their unfortunate patrons, who were all dead. Here, finally, was real evidence of a struggle – scorch marks and holes in the walls, broken furniture, and a bloody tangle of maybe ten bodies strewn about with marks on them that indicated they had been killed by a shock rifle, pulse rifle, and pistols, or maybe even a minigun. It was clearly a recent event.

¨Silenced sniper for the guard,¨ mumbled Gorn distractedly. ¨Caught 'em all in one spot, unarmed. Probably just coincidence it happened like this. Poor bastards.¨ He looked at Ivana, confusion clouding his voice and features. ¨Why? It makes no sense… it really makes no sense.¨

Ivana agreed, but through her horror she felt, almost like a physical weight on her, the pressing urgency for one of them to take charge of the situation. She thought quickly. ¨Gorn, we can't do anything more here. We need to get to Warsaw, and maybe your friends can help us.¨

Gorn opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and pressed his hand to his temples. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath, and when he raised his eyes and spoke again, he was composed. ¨You're right. We don't know where or how many they are. Let's just hope they didn't touch the translocator.¨

They hurried back through the hallway to the translocation room, and were relieved to see that it appeared undamaged. Only upon closer inspection did Ivana notice the little note left on top of the console. It said, in simple block letters, WE WILL FIND YOU. Before Ivana could stop her, Anna snatched the note and crumpled it up. ¨Mother. Fuckers.¨ Her eyes burned with a fury Ivana had never seen before. ¨So they think they're going to trace our steps with this portal and track down our friends also, do they?¨ She grabbed Gorn's pack and reached into a side compartment, pulling out a standard military thermal grenade. ¨Well, they'd better think again.¨

¨Whoa, Anna,¨ Ivana said, looking over at Gorn for help, and saw with surprise that he had already entered their destination and number of travelers into the console. The air shimmered and the portal nearby opened. Upon seeing this, Anna clicked down the grenade's detonation timer and set it on the console. ¨Last one through is a rotten egg,¨ she said.


	20. Scene 20

**Scene 20**

Malcom was growing frustrated. He had dueled skilled opponents before, and he had lost before, but never to someone who so thoroughly dominated him as this. Phobos Moon was one of his favorite maps, too, as far as deathmatch went, and he knew its winding, honeycombed corridors better than anyone. But oddly, his opponent seemed to know exactly what he knew, and furthermore what he was thinking, always arriving to claim the armor or jump boots just a little before Malcom, always knowing where to cut him off with a combo, always waiting for him when he tried to get the sniper rifle.

Sometimes Malcom hit his opponent with several shock beams, but he could not frag him – was it the arena armor pickups, or some further advantage conferred by the carbonium armor the man wore? He spawned again and again, growing tired and running slower, feeling as though he were trapped in mud, churning through the cold space station that seemed to drag him down with its artificial gravity.

Somehow he found a sniper rifle (had his opponent dropped it there just to taunt him?) and made his way to the top of the station, waiting. Suddenly the man appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to grab the body armor. Malcom swept the scope's crosshairs to the metallic torso, firing off three shots in quick succession. He could not see that they had hit, as if his bullets had somehow disappeared, but the figure fell over. When Malcom ran to the armor to pick it up, he noticed that for some reason the body was still there, lying facedown. Had the arena failed to respawn it? Or was it still quite alive?

Malcom raised his shock rifle to the metallic helmet (or _was _it a helmet?) to dispatch the man, but some invisible force stayed his hand. He felt compelled, somehow, to bend over and look at the man's face, feeling, even as he did it, a creeping icy fear that invaded his bones. He groped clumsily at the limp body until he managed to turn it over, and when he gazed into its motionless features, its yellow mechanical eyes suddenly blazed to life. Malcom then saw that the face, though covered completely with form-fitting carbonium plates, was undoubtedly his own.

He gasped and staggered backwards as the figure rose up, towering over him, somehow seeming to grow to gigantic proportions, swelling and filling up all his sight like a balloon. It spoke in a dry, emotionless voice that was his own voice although somehow not, three words that made no sense but nevertheless froze his heart with unspeakable dread: ¨You. Are. Mine!¨

Malcom awoke gasping, his heart trip-hammering in his chest like the crazy staccato fire of a newb with two Enforcers. The dream had been so vivid, it took him at least a minute to become fully conscious of his surroundings and verify that he was in his own bed in New York, next to the sleeping form of his wife. As he lay there in the dark, he found himself wondering about the dream, even though he considered such things to be nothing more significant than the nonsensical mutterings of the subconscious. Why all the metal armor? Was it really him, or some imposter?

Tormented by these thoughts, he finally got up, rolling carefully out of bed so as not to disturb Shyleen, and directed himself towards the kitchen. He'd been thinking of a glass of water, but as he neared the fridge he wondered if something stronger might not be in order. It would certainly be more helpful in getting back to sleep, which he very much needed, what with the TDM championship match in two days.

After he'd poured himself a rather tall scotch on the rocks Malcom sat down at the kitchen bar, pondering in the soft glow of the counter lights the recent events of his life. Despite Dr. Kilgard's assurances that the source of his problem would be encountered, his medical checkup and subsequent psych eval had not turned up anything satisfactory. Of course, he was pronounced by the M.D. to be a paragon of perfect physical health, but the psych had told him that traumatic stress related to the Tournament was a documented issue and had many reported symptoms, including possible temporary memory loss.

The problem with this explanation was that Malcom didn't buy it. He'd never had problems before, so why now? Then there was the fact that his memory loss didn't appear to be temporary. Though he hadn't had any problems in awhile, the missing parts seemed to be totally blank, try as he might to jog his memory by talking to his teammates about some of those matches. He was worried. If it wasn't a brain tumor or something, then what the hell was it?

Preoccupied and slightly alcohol-numbed, Malcom failed to notice the form that slid silently along the wall into the kitchen behind him, tiptoeing softly up to his chair, until…

¨Papa!¨

He jumped about three feet into the air (or at least it seemed like it) before turning angrily to stare down at his daughter. ¨Nara! What are you doing up at this hour? Haven't I told you that when the lights go out, you stay in your room?¨

¨I couldn't sleep.¨ She looked back up at him sorrowfully with sleep-circles under her big eyes and her normally frizzy hair taken to electrifying extremes, probably from tossing around on her pillow. Malcom softened. What was _he _doing up at this hour as well, anyways?

¨I couldn't sleep either,¨ he confessed, ruffling her hair gently with his big hand. ¨Maybe the sandman skipped our house tonight.¨ He studied her. ¨You ok?¨

¨I had a scary dream!¨ she blurted out. ¨Then I was scared, so I couldn't sleep. Then I heard someone.¨

_A nightmare, eh? You and me both, _he said to himself. Kids thought their parents were so invincible. He thought that about himself too sometimes, on the days when he owned the arena and nobody could match him, but right now he felt just about like his daughter looked. Maybe being the comforting dad here would make him feel better as much as her… if he could only see himself through her eyes. ¨A scary dream?¨ he inquired, pulling her onto his knee. ¨You want to tell me about it?¨

¨I dunno. You were in it.¨

¨Oh?¨ he responded, amused. ¨Was I the bad guy?¨

She shook her head emphatically. ¨Mom was bad. She was mad at me and you. Then a monster ate you. But last time, you were bad.¨ He wondered if she was picking up on the recent tension between himself and Shyleen. It wasn't that big of a deal, but who knew… little children were impressionable. ¨Was I mad at you and mom in that other dream?¨ he asked.

¨Yeah, you yelled at her, like that time with Doctor…¨ she stopped herself, then stammered ¨I… I mean, with mom.¨

Malcom's happy paternal feeling was swept away in a swirling wave of apprehension and doubts. ¨Doctor who, Nara? What doctor? What are you talking about?¨

¨I'm not supposed to talk about it.¨

Malcom's stomach did a somersault, and he had to resist the urge to shake her until she told him the truth, instead taking a deep breath and turning her shoulders so that she faced him. ¨Nara, look at me. Look at me, Nara. This is important. You _are _supposed to talk about it.¨

¨But I'm scared,¨ she protested, close to tears. ¨It's not my fault.¨

¨I know it's not your fault. I know. I won't be mad. But I can't remember, Nara. What was the name of the doctor?¨

¨Kilger I think. Or something. You were mad at him, then he made you not mad anymore, and he told mama and me not to talk about it so you wouldn't be mad again.¨

Malcom exhaled shakily, thinking _what the hell is going on here? _Self-consciously, he realized that Nara was inspecting his face for signs of anger. He forcefully composed himself (she was right after all, he was mad, just not at her) and said, with as much firmness as he could muster without flying off the handle, ¨I'm not mad, Nara, because you told me the truth. I need you to always tell me the truth. Lying and keeping secrets is what makes me mad. Do you understand?¨

She nodded slowly, still fearful. ¨Are you mad at mama?¨

Malcom honestly considered this. How much did Shyleen know? Was she keeping things from him out of fear, or for some other reason? ¨I don't know,¨ he replied to his daughter. ¨Maybe she was just afraid, too.¨ He pulled her close for a big hug, suspecting it was more for his own benefit than hers. Tomorrow he would clear his mind and train. The next day they would beat the stuffing out of that impertinent old fart's TDM team. And then he would go to that shifty bastard Kilgard and get to the bottom of this, if he had to wring the truth out of the man.


	21. Scene 21

**Scene 21**

¨I'm hungry.¨

Gorn gave an irritated sigh and answered without looking back at Anna, ¨Yes, I believe you've mentioned that already. Maybe several dozen times, in fact.¨

¨Good, so your ears are working. You know what it means, right? I mean, I realize Standard isn't your first language…¨

¨Of course I know what it means!¨ he exploded. Stopping to get Ivana's leg fixed up had been delay enough, and he felt like they couldn't rest just yet, but Anna was more annoyingly persistent than Skaarj light infantry. ¨But you're not going to starve to death, and we need to assure our safety first! You can't eat if you're dead!¨

¨Don't know, I've never tried it.¨

¨Oh, for the love of…¨

¨Besides,¨ she jumped in, ¨I know a safe place to eat. You actually showed it to me, remember? Where all these shenanigans got started?¨

Gorn sighed again. He should have known; anything you told or showed Anna could and would be used against you in a future argument. But actually, he wouldn't be too upset to concede the debate, taking into account the input from his own stomach. ¨All right, dammit, I give up. Let's go to Bibiana's.¨

Ivana, who had never been to the café before, was suitably impressed with its level of security (¨Like an embassy, or something!¨) and they all felt a bit safer to be inside, though Gorn thought it ironic that his main motive for coming to Bibiana's this time was actually the food. After leaving the pack and all their other gear in the entryway, they grabbed a table and ordered enough sausages, eggs, and biscuits to choke a Krall Titan and tucked in. Between mouthfuls, Gorn quizzed Anna and Ivana on more details relating to the time they'd spent in FenTech's New York facility – the building, the guards they had encountered, and the mysterious memo.

After going over it all several times, Gorn finally sat back with a dissatisfied look and said, ¨well, I still feel like we're missing something. The things that happened there, in my opinion, can't possibly justify this response towards us. What you say you read in that memo, even if they did somehow know you'd read it, isn't nearly specific enough to be damaging. And we didn't even take anything with us. Unless this is all just a misunderstanding, we must be practically sitting on top of something hugely important and not know it.¨

¨Hey, _wait_,¨ breathed Anna, suddenly struck by something, her eyes widening in excitement and tentative understanding. ¨We did take something and I'd totally forgotten about it! I have Kilgard's office ID. It was actually a mistake; I was just looking at it when those guards showed up and during the chaos that followed I somehow ended up holding onto it.¨

¨Maybe it's one of those magnetic ID cards that could get him into his office?¨ Gorn suggested.

¨No, as far as I can tell it's perfectly ordinary. Just a picture and a name on a piece of plastic, information that lots of people already know.¨

Gorn shrugged. ¨I'd like to take a closer look at it anyway. You guys want to?¨

¨Yeah,¨ Anna agreed. ¨Though it seems unlikely to be anything, it was dark before and we were in a hurry – I might have missed some important detail.¨

¨I'll get it,¨ Ivana volunteered, and rose to head back to the entryway. ¨We can check it out here at the table.¨

Ivana had to dig around through the clothes and gear in Gorn's pack for awhile before her hand brushed up against the thin, hard wafer of plastic. Extracting it form the bag and starting to walk back to rejoin her friends, she suddenly felt a very heavy hand on her shoulder. Jumping reflexively, she was relieved to hear the voice of one of the door guards, ¨I'm sorry ma'am, you can't take that card into the restaurant. The sensor is saying it holds a magnetic memory chip.¨

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Five minutes later they were all huddled in a corner at a nearby pub, drinking beers and excitedly looking through the data stored on the card's tiny concealed memory chip with the wireless data reader on Gorn's handheld. It wasn't a huge amount of data – there were certain limits to what you could fit on a memory chip that was practically microscopic – but it was certainly enough.

The data on the chip were organized carefully in three different folders, labeled CURRENT OBSERVATIONS, PREVIOUS OBSERVATIONS, and PROPOSAL FOR FUNDING – PHASE BETA THREE. Avoiding any direct references to what they were actually looking at, Ivana and Anna both adamantly tried to steer Gorn's exploration.

¨We should check 'current obserations' first,¨ maintained Ivana. ¨That should give us the most details of what's actually going on, and if it involves, uh, our friend.¨

¨Bullcrap,¨ countered Anna. ¨We need to check the 'historical observations' to see what the project's based on, and if it has anything to do with, uh, my work, or those, er, representatives that dropped by yesterday.¨

Gorn solved the argument by simply opening the PROPOSAL FOR FUNDING folder without a word. As both Anna and Ivana started to protest, he held up a hand and said, ¨A proposal for money is going to have a summary of the project, guaranteed. Plus it will probably talk about past successes, if in this case they can be classified as such. Finally, we might find some of those, uh, work contacts we've been looking for.¨

The folder they were looking at contained a few data sheets of cost analysis and a document labeled PROFILE BETA 3, which he opened. They all silently read the document together, fascinated, with Gorn revealing more text each time Anna and Ivana told him to continue. What they saw answered a lot of questions:

Name: Project Metis

Developer: FenTech Laboratories, Inc.

Stage:Beta 3.1

Funds solicited:360,848,255.42 Terran Credits (current value)

Project cost analysis: see Annex II.

Summary:

In the demanding world of inter-planetary combat, and faced with the reality of defeat at the hands of a merciless, inhuman enemy, it is imperative that today's military leader be equipped with the necessary means to ensure obedience and effectiveness in his troops. Recently, recurring problems with morale and willingness to follow orders have been linked to mental strain of fighting in alien environments against a psychologically intimidating enemy, a situation unacceptable in the armed forces charged with the defense of mankind.

Subsequent experiments with improved training methods have ultimately proven unsatisfactory, and real progress in this field has been hampered by the bad publicity generated by certain techniques of psychological preparation. Likewise, the use of fully robotic troops, while effective, has remained impractical under most circumstances due to the extremely high cost.

FenTech Laboratories, long a trusted scientific partner of the terran military, has developed Project Metis in response to the need for a low-cost, effective solution to this important dilemma. Using patented FenTech nanotechnology, the commands of officers in the field are relayed directly to the control center of their troops' brains, rendering their orders literally impossible to disobey, regardless of the soldier's mental or emotional disposition to do the task. The result is an efficient, effective, dependable soldier in all circumstances that is equal to the task of preserving the human race against the continued threat of the Skaarj and other hostile aliens.

Due to the possibility of a negative public reaction to Project Metis, and furthermore because of its status as an unproven technology with a risk for errors, previous beta testing groups have been limited and highly classified. Having now had the opportunity to perfect the design of the protein-based nanomachines and the nature of their interaction with the human brain (see Annex I, Analysis of Past Results) we feel reasonably confident in increasing the size of the tester group and beginning actual field tests in zones of frontier combat. Also, the pilot experiment of using Tournament gladiators to test the nanomachines has proven very useful and we plan to continue it on a slightly larger scale. Regardless, the project will remain highly classified in phase 3.1, especially in light of recent pressures from certain other government agencies.

In spite of recent minor setbacks, we at FenTech look forward to continuing our fruitful working relationship with the Global Defense Forces, and as always trust that our record of dedication, discretion, and quality results speak for themselves in your wise consideration to continue support for this indispensable project.

----------------------------------------------------------

¨Holy crap,¨ breathed Ivana.

¨I…. I don't believe this,¨ said Gorn, shaking his head incredulously. Anna, however, just exhaled deeply and said, ¨Well… I knew it. I thought it had to be something like this.¨

Gorn, who was still busy being in denial, ignored the comment, but Ivana turned and asked, ¨How, Anna? Something you learned before?¨

¨It wasn't that. It's the name of the project…. Project M…¨ she glanced furtively around the room, ¨well, you know. That name isn't familiar to you?¨

Ivana shrugged. ¨I thought it was some acronym, or made-up word.¨

¨Nobody reads Greek myths anymore,¨ Anna complained. ¨You're all missing out. Well anyways, Metis was the goddess of prudence, a character that Zeus, the head honcho of the gods, tricked into turning herself into a fly and then swallowed. But because she was immortal, instead of dying she set up camp inside his head and gave him advice from there.¨

¨Hmm… appropriate.¨

¨That's why I was pretty sure this thing related to M…er…oh fuck it,¨ she exclaimed, glancing around at the crowd of chattering drunks, ¨nobody's listening. I was pretty sure it related to Malcom because I remembered how we thought he might be somehow receiving outside information. Hey Gorn, you okay there, big guy?¨

¨That was almost me,¨ he said hollowly. ¨They wanted to make me a slave.¨

Anna looked at Gorn curiously, regarding him in a new way. ¨Wow, that's fucked up. When did this happen? Before you started the Dark Phalanx?¨

He nodded numbly, as if wishing he didn't believe the evidence of his own memory. ¨When they gave me these… improvements, I was asked if I wanted to participate in an experimental program to facilitate deliver of orders in the field. They made it sound like a radio link to my head or something. But I bet it was this project, because a friend of mine who was also badly injured signed up and he disappeared after that. I opted out because I simply wanted to retire from the military.¨ He shuddered. ¨Glad I did… I could've ended up like those… _things_ in the park.¨

Ivana patted his massive shoulder. ¨Well, we're glad you didn't end up like that.¨

¨Damn straight,¨ agreed Anna. ¨If you weren't here, who would I argue with all the time?¨

Gorn shook his head ruefully. ¨Well, I can think of one argument you may have won permanently. I can't look at the GDF the same way anymore knowing that they support this…. this… he foundered, looking for a suitably descriptive word, ¨…goddamn _travesty_.¨

¨I'm not going to say I told you so,¨ responded Anna charitably, ¨since I didn't have a clue about this either. But would you understand now if I wanted to leave the Tournament to pursue… ´personal interests' after this season?¨

¨We'll blow up that bridge when we get to it,¨ he answered stoically. ¨Speaking of the Tournament…¨

¨Wait, don't you mean '_cross'_ that bridge?

¨Whatever. Anyway, I wonder if there's anything in here about weaknesses they've found with these nano-things? Maybe we can jam their signal or something in the match. After all, it _is_ cheating.¨

Ivana laughed. ¨Right, I forgot that's what we went through all this shit for. Maybe there's something here in the annex about past results?¨

They advanced through the document, finding the annex quickly, but it was mostly a bunch of numbers that everyone was too tired to sit down and analyze at the moment. Further on, Ivana exclaimed, ¨Wait! Go back… what did that say about 'side effects'?¨ Gorn scrolled back to a short list:

Possible side effects: Disorientation, headaches, psychosis under non-combat conditions, loss of memory and/or free will, acute SBI (spontaneous brain implosion – only one reported case).

¨These are all chance,¨ remarked Gorn, ¨nothing we can specifically use. Let's check that 'current observations' folder.¨ The ladies agreed, and upon opening the folder they found a series of other files, all labeled ¨Case Study:¨ and the name of someone, presumably an experimental subject. About halfway down was ¨Case Study: Malcom¨. It contained a few daily observations on his responsiveness, a few records of his performance during matches (Gorn was amused to see a document named 'duelwithGorn9-22') and one mysterious document labeled 'notes'. They opened it up and were immediately glad they did. It said:

This week

Test subject growing suspicious. Refrain from use until next Tournament match.

2.9 nanomachines discontinued. Instruct Agent 5. to use destruction phrase for old machines, and administer new ones.

New signal encryption code: y35o7u28a66re922m4i0n17e

¨Wow,¨ said Gorn, ¨This is excellent. Hey Anna, can we use this code to jam the signal to Malcom's nanomachines?¨

¨Just knowing to look for that signal would probably be enough,¨ she replied, a wicked grin working its way onto her face, ¨but with this, we can mess with him even more.¨

¨If it involves doing brain damage, it's vetoed,¨ said Ivana firmly. ¨That's just going too far, especially since it looks like Malcom doesn't know what's going on… see how it mentions here that he's 'getting suspicious'?¨

¨That about fits with the way he acted after our match on Deck 16,¨ Gorn remarked. ¨Still, we can't allow this to go on. We'll just have to figure out how to stop it during the match on Temp…¨ he stopped, eyes widening. ¨Oh my god! That's tomorrow!¨

¨Just find us a place to crash tonight, and I'll take care of the rest,¨ Anna said reassuringly. ¨Radio signals are my thing.¨

Gorn gave her a big thumbs up. ¨Sounds good. Let's just make sure we get enough rest to function well tomorrow… I feel like I'm about to collapse, and you both look about the same.¨ He raised his glass. ¨To victory.¨

¨To justice,¨ added Anna, toasting him.

Ivana felt she had to round that out with a more unifying message. ¨To the Dark Phalanx,¨ she said. ¨To my friends.¨ They gladly drank to that.


	22. Scene 22

**Scene 22**

It was raining in Warsaw. Cold, fat drops plummeted from the somber sky. The water ran in sheets to the sides of the lightly raised avenues, collecting in sluggish streams that danced to the ceaseless rhythm of new drops falling on their surface. Periodically, the rivulets disappeared from the roadside into the gaping maw of a storm drain, swept under the living structures of the city to join with the collected effluence of used city water in buried aqueducts that led to a massive subterranean aquifer and treatment plant. Here it was purified, passing through meshed ion shields to be re-distributed by electrical pumps into the urban hydraulic network.

Cinching shut the antique mechanical tap in his tiled shower stall, Gorn cut off the stream of breathtakingly cold water that, unknown to him, had mostly fallen from the sky during the night and morning. He stepped out of the stall, toweling off vigorously to friction-warm his skin and to get his sleep-numbed blood flowing. Hot showers were more pleasant, but they didn't wake a person up quite the same way. After sleeping like a dead man for sixteen hours and rising almost in the evening, he felt pretty caught up, but he wanted to be absolutely sharp and alert at the start of the match in two hours. This year, the Tournament TDM Championship would belong to the Dark Phalanx!

Gorn left the towel hanging on the tap and strode across the old-fashioned military shower room towards the entrance, where his clothes hung. As he neared his destination, he was nearly flattened by Anna and Ivana, both gloriously naked, who charged in through the door, chattering incoherently about how they were going to be late. He spun to reprimand them, but suddenly found himself irresistibly distracted by the sight. It was oddly mesmerizing. Through all their time training and fighting together, and all the team showers, how come he'd never noticed that beauty mark on Ivana's….?

He cut off that thought and pulled his clothes on quickly, feeling himself blush right through the metal plates in his cheeks. He'd never had these kinds of problems with losing focus around his female teammates before. All the time they were spending together lately outside of the arena must have had some kind of adverse affect. He resolved to keep his mind clear and focused on their objectives…for the short-term future, anyhow.

Gorn headed out of the shower room and into the mess hall of the semi-defunct 21st century training barracks they were staying at. Poland still kept a small corps of national guard troops, despite the fact that such measures were generally considered a useless anachronism, ¨just in case.¨ Some traditions died hard. But Gorn was glad for their existence, if only because the men in charge here were old-fashioned types like himself who had an instinctive mistrust of the new, vague government entities, and stuck (unofficially) to old loyalties as well as outdated principles like honor and fidelity. Gorn figured he had half an hour before the women finished getting ready, and he wanted to give his former commander Grigoriy an earful before they left. If something unexpected happened to the Dark Phalanx, which now seemed like a distinct possibility, someone had to carry the truth onward.

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In New York, an almost unnaturally warm and bright late September day was darkening over with towering stacked cumulonimbus monsters that promised violent precipitation in the afternoon. Business in the city maintained its headlong charge, heedless of the celestial powers preparing to do their worst, secure in its instinctive knowledge that the forces of nature had been rendered impotent against meticulously-crafted edifices of alloyed metals and plastiglass. One of these superscrapers contained the arena Tempest, an extensive maze of rooms and corridors designed specifically for the Tournament by its owner, Xan Kriegor, the enigmatic perennial champion. It was said that he practiced there with a mysterious elite team that never competed, and that fought only for his personal entertainment and training. In another superscraper somewhat near Tempest was Malcom's apartment, where its rent-paying occupant was nearly ready to emerge and face the public.

¨Malcom!¨

¨Yes, Shyleen?¨

¨You going to brush your teeth, or do you want all the cameras today focused on some gunked-up yellow choppers?¨

¨Ferchrissake woman, it's not that big a…¨ He stopped as she suddenly materialized at his side in the kitchen, toothbrush in hand and already coated with toothpaste. ¨Here, just take this toothbrush and stick it in your mouth,¨ she instructed. ¨Do it for me?¨ Malcom heaved a sigh and complied, figuring it was much easier than an argument, since she seemed so determined. If he had to fight a battle, he preferred to do it in the arena, against heavily-armed professional killers. It was easier.

After scrubbing his pearly whites at the kitchen sink for what seemed like long enough to please Shyleen, he walked over to the table and crouched down beside his daughter, who was still eating her lunch of Turbo Grain Busters, and put a big hand across her shoulders. ¨Gotta go earn my living, Nara. Take it easy on your mom, you hear?¨

¨Are you going to win, papa? You said you were going to, right?¨

As a response he simply nodded, drifting back into the thoughts that had been plaguing him lately. Of course he was going to win. Winning was easy; it was a straightforward goal that he understood and knew how to achieve. But what the hell was he going to say to doctor Kilgard afterwards? Wasn't the guy supposedly trying to help him?

Malcom shook his head to erase these thoughts and stood up. Now was not the time to get distracted by trivialities! He had more important things to focus on. Without saying anything more to Nara or Shyleen, he walked over to the door and began to put his shoes on, already visualizing what he would do in the match, already hearing in his mind the thunder of the shock combos, the crack of a sniper rifle. This year, the Tournament TDM Championship would belong to the Thunder Crash!


	23. Scene 23

**Scene 23**

Tempest's luxurious public lounge was absolutely packed. Media representatives struggled to share space with team agents, Liandri Corporation executives, Tournament rules specialists, and the regular spectators present. These ´specs´ were all of the very wealthiest and most privileged strata of society, the only ones who could afford the price of seeing a Tournament championship match live at the arena.

Watching a match from Tempest's lounge was truly a unique experience. Situated on the top floor of the superscraper, directly above the arena, the floor of the lounge was made entirely of brilliantly-clear crystal, giving an open view of the action taking place below. Inside the arena, of course, the ceiling appeared opaque, thanks to holographic images projected across its surface, only visible from below. As the gladiators entered the arena and began warming up, the spectators milling around on the floor of the lounge began to migrate to the edges and climb onto raised balconies, to clear the visual obstruction and get a wider perspective of the arena. Presently, just as everyone was settled in and starting to get antsy, the announcer began his countdown to start the match. ¨ATTENTION GLADIATORS. WARM-UP ENDING. MATCH WILL START IN THIRTY SECONDS.¨

¨TWENTY SECONDS.¨ The crowd began to cheer.

¨TEN SECONDS. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN. SIX. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE.¨ The buzzer sounded and below, all the combatants spawned.

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Gorn was running the instant he spawned, Enforcer pistol drawn. He had started in the upper part of the map, close to the minigun and figured he would probably be the one to claim it if he could get there fast enough. As he rounded a corner, he saw that he was mistaken – Riker was already nearly there. With a yell, Gorn put two Enforcer bullets in Riker's back armor before he could get behind one of the thin columns surrounding the minigun. Gorn closed in quickly, paused behind a column, and waited until Riker poked the long, round barrel of his newly-acquired weapon out before jumping directly in front of him, muscling the barrel upwards with his free hand as it spun up and began firing. The spray of bullets pinged harmlessly off the ceiling, and Riker had time for a brief cry of surprise as Gorn pressed quickly into him and put a bullet between his eyes at point-blank range with his Enforcer. ¨Thanks comrade, I'll take that,¨ Gorn laughed as Riker's body disappeared and he was left holding his beloved minigun.

¨First blood!¨ yelled the tournament announcer. ¨Gorn starts us off with a brilliant close-quarters move to conquer Riker and take charge of the minigun. This, folks, is what earned him the nickname ¨Terror of the Skaarj¨ during the Seven-day Siege, when….¨ Gorn blocked out the rest, making a conscious effort to resist the temptation to stand around like a moron and listen to the announcer. He was off to a good start, but would feel a lot better once he found some armor. The beginning of a TDM match was always the most chaotic part, which was exactly what Gorn liked about it.

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¨Enemy has the shield belt!¨ Ivana reported, extrapolating that it had been claimed by one of the two Thunder Crash members that had just chased her out of the shield belt room under a hail of rockets and pulse rifle spam. ¨Give me some status!¨

¨Secure in the armor room,¨ reported Farham.

¨Just respawned near the goo,¨ noted Anna.

¨Doing good at the sniper,¨ came Gorn's remark. ¨Somebody grab that shock rifle and defend the amp room, I'll be along with some jump boots to get the amp shortly.¨

¨Already there,¨ replied Ivana. ¨Farham, fill up that hallway from the belt room with some ripper blades… Gorn, hurry up; they could be coming around your way.¨

¨Got it,¨ came their simultaneous affirmations.

Ivana held her position guarding the shock-amp room, shooting an occasional shock bubble through the doorway to let anyone still in the shield belt area know that a combo in the face awaited them if they tried to come in. But nobody tried, and in a couple seconds Anna came up the stairs from the lowest level of Tempest, carefully holding her fully-charged biorifle. ¨They're holding the belt room still, with one person outside above the biorifle to protect that back entrance.¨

¨Kind of them, giving us time to plan this,¨ remarked Gorn, jogging into the amp room to join his two teammates. ¨What do you say, Ivana?¨

¨It'll be hard to take the shield belt room, the way they're entrenched, but we don't want more than one of them running around with a full belt, so we'd better get to it. Gorn, get the amp and go around the back door. Farham, since you've got armor, try and get through that hallway and I'll follow you. Anna, you grab the flak and start heading through that lower entrance with the thigh pads. Go!¨

Her first orders already being filled out before the last ones were spoken, Ivana continued to spam shock bubbles at the closest entrance from the belt room. She heard the hiss of Gorn's jump-boots as he launched himself into the rafters over her head, and the harsh, synthesized bell signifying that he'd picked up the damage amplifier.

His weapon suddenly seeming to emit a glowing purple light, Gorn quickly launched himself down towards the doorway he'd come in through, sprinting out and quickly dropping down another level, then running down the wide hallway towards the back door of the shield belt area.

Barreling around a turn in the hallway, his highly sensitive eyes picked out the form of a woman crouched in the shadows near a poorly-lit wall. She had time neither to stand up nor raise her weapon as he fusilladed her with his minigun, its bullets temporarily granted about three times their normal stopping power. Hearing the muffled sounds of a fight near the other side of the belt room, Gorn hoped his teammates had the Thunder Crash sufficiently distracted and boot-jumped up to the narrow ledge that led into the opposition's position.

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¨Azure,¨ Riker yelled, ¨help me out down here!¨

¨But the back door…¨

¨Just get some grenades into that hallway, quickly!¨

She sighed and ran towards the center of the room on her high walkway, watching that top doorway out of the corner of her eye as she used the secondary fire on her rocket launcher to lob a few grenades down near where the shock bubbles had been coming earlier, hoping to catch someone now trying to come in. To her surprise, a Dark Phalanx member appeared in the doorway, attempting to dodge his way through the grenades. He was struck by one and staggered back, his body armor shattered. ¨Incoming!¨ she shouted at Riker.

¨On it!¨

Through his words, she thought she heard the sound of the jump boots being used from behind her. _Shit._ She spun and fired a rocket at the back entrance, but Gorn ran through too quickly, slipping past the projectile like a bulky designated hitter dodging a tight fastball as he opened fire. Azure was down before she could fire again. As she spawned, berating her stupidity, she remembered they still had plan B: Malcom.

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Ivana charged into the shield belt room past Farham's plasma-seared corpse, ready to finish off his attacker, but arrived just in time to see Gorn take Riker down with a quick, lethal spray of amped minigun fire. ¨Double Kill!¨ hollered the announcer, just as the harsh synthesized bell sounded again, four times in succession, to indicate that the damage amp's thirty seconds of use were ending. Rather than celebrate the apparent victory, Gorn looked quickly around the room, apparently disturbed.

¨Where's their guy with the belt?¨

Ivana was surprised. ¨Didn't you run into him on the other side?¨

¨He must've slipped past me. I can handle this spot along with Anna when she gets here; you and Farham, get to the other side of the map!¨ She nodded quickly and ran out, her only verbal acknowledgment a barely-audible ¨Giving orders, are we?¨ that floated behind her across the comm line. Gorn chuckled, eyeing the scores on his HUD. They had taken the early lead, 7-3.

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The air low-down on the small cement ledge shimmered as the sniper rifle spawned, and for an instant, Malcom's intense, deadly aspect morphed into a satisfied grin, although it would have been difficult to see at any great distance through the shimmering yellow energy armor of the shield belt that surrounded his body. His teammates had been routed from the shield belt room, but he had slipped behind the backs of the Dark Phalanx, and now he was going to turn things around with his armor and his sniper.

¨Aryss! How are you doing at the body armor?¨

¨Need backup!¨

¨Okay; Riker and Azure, get over here and hold the jump boot area if you can. Aryss, I'm on my way.¨ He hopped down off the sniper ledge and turned straight into the amp room, almost casually flicking his sniper rifle towards Ivana as he saw her come in through the opposite door. She shot a shock bubble at him at about the same time, but he took her down with a perfect headshot long before she had a chance to combo him, not even stopping to properly shoulder his gun. ¨HEADSHOT!¨ boomed the announcer's voice. ¨Still alive, Aryss?¨ Malcom inquired.

¨Yeah, but taking fire. Hurry up!¨

Inferring that her attacker would already be in the body armor room, Malcom continued into the narrow hallway which ran from the belt room to a ledge above the body armor. As he burst out of the hallway, he witnessed a temporary stalemate – Aryss moving around the edges of the room to his left on the upper ledge, attempting to ricochet deadly spinning Ripper blades off the walls to get at Farham below her, who was bouncing as much flak off the ceiling as he could and waiting for her to drop down so he could shred her in one close-quarters shot with his cannon. Malcom ran out to the right to get a better shot at Aryss's opponent, and as soon as he had it, he quickly took Farham down with two sniper bullets in the chest. ¨Grab that armor when it spawns,¨ he ordered, ¨then come secure the amp room.¨

¨Roger that.¨

He dropped off the ledge and left her behind, continuing down the wide passage towards the jump boots. ¨Riker, are those boots up yet?¨

¨Just spawned, you want 'em?¨

¨Yeah. Go help Aryss with the amp room. Azure, back me up.¨ Both responded with a quick ¨Ok¨ as he ducked into the jump boot alcove, the boots' holographic image disappearing as he stepped through it and the solid, real thing was translocated onto his feet. Azure hopped down onto the ledge to his left to grab the flak cannon, then dropped down again to join him. She stuck to his flank as Malcom continued towards the far side of the map.

As they neared an intersection, Malcom halted, looking to the right up a ramp that led to the sniper rifle area. _What am I doing?_ He thought. _We need to get to the belt room._ But he felt somehow compelled to stay a second. Suddenly, he knew someone was coming – a woman. It was as if he saw her in his mind's eye, running down that corridor towards them, rounding the corner….

And there she was, entering the sights of his sniper just when he'd somehow known she would. He squeezed the trigger almost reflexively, watching as if through the eyes of another person as she was felled with one shot to the head. _How did I do that?_ He wondered. But hadn't he always been good at predicting the movements of his opponents? Or had it just never seemed odd before because he hadn't given it much thought?

¨What's up, chief?¨ It was Azure. Malcom realized that he'd remained crouched and motionless for several seconds longer than he'd meant to, and got up hastily. ¨It's nothing. Come on.¨ They turned and jogged into the large, vacant room behind the shield belt area, Malcom issuing orders to Azure as they moved. ¨They have a strong position here and won't expect an attack, so that's exactly what we'll do. I need you to go around below and enter by the thigh pads route. When I hear your flak cannon, I'll know that they're distracted and I'll come in through the upper window. Just try to stay alive long enough for me to arrive for backup.¨

¨Right.¨

She dropped down to the biorifle, passing it by disdainfully and heading into the lower passage towards the shield belt area. Malcom watched her go, then jogged over and crouched under the ledge below the window he was preparing to enter, waiting silently for the sounds of combat. Presently, there was the unmistakable flat thud of a flak cannon shell exploding, followed by a clatter of minigun fire, and Malcom quickly dodged a few feet away from the wall and boot-jumped up and towards the window above him. As he did, he pulled a shock rifle out of his pack, ready to defend himself against the enemy that was camped out on the ledge to his left, getting ready to combo him as he came in. Wait… how did he know that?

No time to think. Malcom snapped to his left as he entered the door, firing a shock primary beam at the crouched female figure that he knew he would see. In almost the same instant, she fired a shock secondary bubble at him, which his beam hit, annihilating her in a shower of gore with an accidental combo at extreme close range. He couldn't help laughing. Turning to the right, he ran into the center of the room, pointing his shock rifle down below, just in time to see Azure's bullet-riddled body disappear. Gorn wasn't in his immediate sight, but Malcom suddenly realized that he saw his opponent directly under the ledge he was standing on. It was somehow like he was looking through a clear glass walkway instead of a foot of hard reinforced concrete. What the hell? Then he realized that he'd poked his shock rifle over the ledge and was shooting a combo straight down, apparently without consciously having decided to do it. Again there was the weird sensation of watching himself act through the eyes of a third-person observer. He saw Gorn note the shock ball and try to dodge out from under the ledge, to get out of range of the combo. He almost made it, but the outside edge caught him and threw him across the room, his shimmering yellow energy armor disappearing as he tumbled over twice and jumped to his feet, immediately swinging his minigun up to where the combo had come from.

Malcom, still watching the battle with a disconnected sense of wonder and dull confusion, had the presence of mind to be impressed with his opponent's recovery. Gorn had probably sustained some internal injuries from that blast, but within a second he had gained his feet and trained his minigun at Malcom, dodging and weaving to make himself difficult to hit. As Malcom fired a shock primary shot that missed Gorn to his left and began to run along the ledge, the minigun gun spun up and began firing, spraying a precise stream of bullets which hit Malcom's energy shield with a hissing sound as if entering water and stayed embedded there, apparently stuck in thin air. Malcom took another shot and missed once more, Gorn dodging agilely just before the shock rifle was reloaded and ready to fire.

Spurred by a growing urgency to end the fight before Gorn broke through his shield belt and aerated his hide, Malcom began to recover his focus and take charge of the situation. He ran a couple more steps to give the shock rifle time to reload once more, then doubled quickly back to his left, escaping Gorn's stream of fire for just long enough to take a good shot. He nailed the Dark Phalanx captain in the center of his chest, bringing him down permanently just as the minigun trained on him again, taking off the last of his shield belt. A couple stray bullets slammed into his base chest plate.

Malcom let out a long, unsteady breath, wiping cold sweat off his brow. He had to stop doubting himself here and now, or this match was going to go badly. Whatever the reason for his confusion was, it could be resolved _later._ He flicked on his team comm line and demanded: ¨Thunder Crash, give me some status!¨

¨Just respawned,¨ replied Aryss.

¨Under heavy fire in the amp room,¨ said Riker, his tone breathless and urgent. ¨I gotta retreat before…¨ His message cut out in a burst of static.

¨At the biorifle, heading back to the belt room,¨ said Azure.

Malcom thought quickly. ¨Good, Azure, get in here and help me. Riker and Aryss, pair up and stay alive, they're about to have an amp run.¨ There was a chorus of ¨Roger thats¨ from his three teammates, shortly before the sound that he'd been dreading played on the arena speakers… the amp bell. Malcom shouldered his shock rifle and aimed it towards the entrance from the amp room, waiting. He sensed a female figure in there, holding the amp and a sniper rifle, just waiting a few seconds, pretending that she'd gone elsewhere. He waited too, holding his fire, letting her think that he'd evacuated the belt room. Presently she made her move, and he shot a shock ball towards the doorway, timing it so that she'd arrive there just in time to greet his combo. In his mind's eye he could see the two converge, and they met at a 90 degree angle in the doorway in the same instant that he detonated the combo. ¨You killed Anna¨ flashed on his HUD.

¨It looked like the Dark Phalanx was going to stage a comeback there with the damage amp, but Malcom put a stop to it with an amazing prediction combo! I tell you folks, there's nobody else like him!¨ the announcer yelled gleefully,

Malcom smiled and ran back along the ledge to get the shield belt that was about to spawn. He saw Azure, who'd just entered the room, running over to pick up the pulse rifle and knew that they were back in a good position once again. This match was going just as he'd hoped it would.

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¨Goddamn cocksucker dirty ass slutcakes bullshit WALLHACKS!¨

¨Wallhacks?¨ Gorn inquired across the comm line.

¨Wallhacks!¨

¨Fucking wallhacks,¨ agreed Ivana.

¨Fucking _dirty _wallhacks,¨ suggested Farham.

¨All right, knock that off,¨ Gorn said seriously, glancing at his HUD. After initially taking the lead in the match, they were now down 20-15. ¨Anna, whatever you plan on doing here to Malcom, you'd better do it now… I think we've seen enough.¨

¨Already on it, chief.¨ She was crouched near the body armor, Farham protecting her as best he could by spamming flak and ripper blades into the three entrances to the room. He'd already killed a Thunder Crash member who'd been unfortunate enough to run in from the amp room at the wrong moment and catch one of the spinning circular blades at neck level. His head was sliced neatly off. Farham loved doing that with the Ripper. But it had been a lucky kill, and now he was getting anxious… how long was this going to take? He probably wouldn't be able to protect Anna forever, especially lacking a better weapon such as the shock or sniper rifle. But this was important.

Anna had explained very briefly to him before the match that they were pretty sure Malcom was using some kind of outside information to cheat, and that she might need to jam his signal. It was surprising, but then again, you learned to expect this kind of thing in the Tournament. Its rules were often interpreted more as a set of general guidelines, especially by the gladiators who also happened to be convicts. He risked a glance behind him to the semi-protected alcove where Anna was working, punching buttons furiously on her comm device. ¨Almost done there?¨ he asked.

¨I've got the signal isolated… and its source, too, which is interesting. It's coming from someone in the lounge right above us. I guess that's what you would expect though, with that view they could do the best job of helping him cheat. I have to use my decryption code here and then I'll just encrypt a looping signal of random noise that I'm going to be sending to Malcom's receiver for the rest of the match. He'll no longer be able to discern any useful information coming in across that line.¨

¨Sounds great, but can you hurry it up?¨

¨Thirty more seconds.¨ Farham paced nervously. Suddenly a Thunder Crash member appeared from the upper hallway to the minigun area, flinging herself down into the armor pit as she rained rockets around Farham. He took a glancing hit to his body armor and staggered backwards, partially stunned, but managed to throw himself to the side to avoid her next rocket, and close in before being hit again to shred her with a point-blank shot of hot metal flak shards. ¨You almost done there?¨ he asked Anna urgently.

¨Yeah… almost got it… there we go. This noise is going to be fairly unpleasant for him unless he turns that line off so we shouldn't have any more problems.¨ _Too bad he can't turn that line off, _she thought with grim satisfaction. _I wonder how well he'll fight with his head full of static?_

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¨Aaaarrggh!¨ Malcom doubled over in agony, struggling to get a grip on his consciousness but slowly losing ground as all his senses were inundated with a wave of warped images and sounds. He fell to his knees with his head in his hands, dry-heaving with nausea. It was like having the inside of his head scoured out with a brillo pad, an insane roller-coaster ride through a sea of sensory gibberish. He wasn't even aware of the female figure bending over him, her features full of concern, asking ¨Malcom! Malcom, are you ok?¨ He was dimly aware, a moment later, of the flash of blue light that obliterated her and sent him sprawling, tearing away his shield belt, and somehow looked up in time to see the second shock bubble come towards him, but didn't quite manage to figure out what it meant.

There was a half-second of blessed blackness, nothingness, then another half-second of good, clean, simple pain, but as soon as he had respawned it started again. Somehow, he managed to tap a button and pant weakly across his comm line, ¨Help… please… someone…stop it…¨

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The observer in the spectator's lounge raised his eyebrows, impressed. So, those meddling miscreants in the Dark Phalanx had actually managed to put their stolen information to good use. Not too shabby. It was a shame that people with that kind of intelligence rarely used it for a higher good or applied it to something other than their own selfish concerns. A real shame. Without the presence of organizing visionaries in the world, everything would be chaos… and did most people notice, or care? Not in the least. They were mediocre, just smart enough to be presumptuous; all convinced of their own wisdom and heedlessly interfering with things that the truly wise knew were for the common good. He was going to truly enjoy subjugating this woman and her friends and turning them to his purpose.

For now, a strategic retreat must be made. A couple minutes of this kind of punishment, and his star pupil's mind would be damaged to the point of losing its usefulness to him. Knowing that the nanomachines' self-destruct message would be received by Malcom's subconscious despite being garbled, he picked up something disguised to look like a media microphone, switched it on, put it to his mouth, and whispered ¨Athena Beta 3.¨

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Through his confusion, Malcom suddenly experienced a second of burning pain that seemed to be right inside his head, and then… nothing. He dropped gratefully to the ground, rolling over onto his back and letting the waves of pure relief wash over him, ignoring the concerned voices of his teammates flooding his comm line.

After a few seconds like that, he had the bad luck of being spotted by a member of the Dark Phalanx rather than someone from his own team. It was Anna. When she ran up and inspected him, seeing the stupefied smile on his face, she just snorted a laugh and continued on. This gesture of contempt was what finally got Malcom's beleaguered mind to drag itself back into a functional state again. Being written off like that, as if he weren't even worth the trouble to kill, drove a lance straight into his sense of pride and pissed him off sufficiently to get him moving and determined. Ignore him, would they?

He took a quick look at his surroundings and found himself near a shock rifle, not far from the jump boots. He picked up the weapon and ran out into the main hallway, checking the jump boot alcove (empty) and continuing towards the body armor. As he turned a corner to the right, he almost ran smack into Farham who was coming from the opposite direction. Before he could react, was slapped backwards in the chest by an invisible hand, falling down stunned and totally disabled with a chest full of burning flak. He tried to move and failed, just managing to see the explosive flak canister arcing over his body….

Malcom respawned, still pissed off, in the shield belt room which was blessedly empty. As he ran over to claim the rocket launcher, he couldn't help but question again what was happening in this match. It seemed that his sense of prediction had just failed him completely, and not only that, his quick-acting reflexes as well. He _knew_ that none of those Dark Phalanx members used enhancers, let alone such top-shelf products like Reflexon which were available only for sponsored Gladiators. Picking up the rocket launcher and running back towards the ramp to the shield belt, he reflected that his slow reaction must have been due to surprise, to encountering a situation that he was unused to dealing with. Was he that used to always predicting the locations of his opponents?

He threw the rocket launcher over his shoulder into a harness as he picked up the pulse rifle, starting to run up the ramp towards the shield belt. Suddenly, he saw movement out of the right corner of his eye at the shield belt's location, and barely had time to throw himself off the ramp before a huge glob of bio-sludge landed on it, splattering all over the area where he'd been a fraction of a second ago. He hit the floor of the room hard on his side, hearing the crack of his arm breaking as he rolled over and came up with his pulse rifle pointing up towards the shield belt ledge above him. _Jesus! _ There was someone there, too? How had he not noticed?

He backed away from the ledge, trying to get to the health packs that he knew were under a ramp behind him, spamming pulse rifle fire up into the shadows near the belt to cover his retreat. He had almost reached the ramp when Gorn dodged through the door from the amp room, brandishing a shock rifle. Malcom trained a shaft of his pulse rifle's secondary fire on Gorn and tried to close in, hoping he was injured, but he didn't manage to kill his opponent or reduce the distance between them quickly enough to avoid the combo that detonated behind him, the edge of the shockwave throwing him forward like a limp ragdoll as the world went black.

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The Dark Phalanx soon regained control of the match, tying the score at 25-25, then passing the Thunder Crash 26-25, and continuing to build their lead for the rest of the 45 minutes. Despite their talent and CTF experience, the Thunder Crash found themselves repeatedly outmaneuvered by the more experienced TDM team. They were sandwiched in ambushes at the armors and damage amp, chased down soon after they spawned before finding any good weapons, and never managed to achieve the level of teamwork and instinctive coherence that the Dark Phalanx manifested. With Malcom growing more and more frustrated, as he had in the duel with Gorn on Deck 16, the Thunder Crash gradually fell apart and the score stood at 75-49 when the final buzzer sounded.

As was customary in a championship match, the gladiators met in the center of the map to shake hands afterwards. The announcer went on chattering about the stunning upset victory and amazing teamwork and resilience shown by this older team against the very personification of youth and talent, and how it showed that nothing could compensate for experience, and so on. The Gladiators ignored it as they lined up and faced each other, both teams appearing to honestly size each other up for the first time. They seemed to be digesting the results, or maybe just taking a breather. By his glower, Malcom wanted to put off as long as possible the necessity of shaking hands with his opponents. But he knew the importance of his reputation. Finally, he walked over and offered his hand to Gorn. It was shaking slightly.

Facing Gorn's impassive stare, Malcom wondered if the confusion and uncertainty showed in his own eyes through his apparent anger. If so, Gorn didn't seem to notice – showed no emotion at all, actually, which was pretty impressive considering he'd just won one of the most important spectator sporting events in the galaxy. ¨Good game, captain,¨ Gorn said. Malcom said nothing, and continued on to shake the hands of the other Dark Phalanx members.

The last was Anna. When he got to her, she said ¨good game¨ and shook his hand with a mysterious half-smile, then added quietly, ¨I'm sure you could've done better.¨ He felt an odd dryness pressed into his hand, and when he looked down, he saw a folded piece of paper. When he glanced up, surprised, Anna gave him a meaningful stare, then a barely perceptible nod in the direction of… his crotch? Wait, no, the side pocket of his armored combat pants. To hide his confusion, Malcom did the only thing he could think of at the time – said ¨thanks,¨ and slipped the paper into his pocket. Then, the spell was broken and the airborn interview cameras descended.

¨How does it feel to be this year's Team Deathmatch Champions?¨ one camera asked Gorn. ¨Any comments you'd like to make about the match?¨ He didn't really feel like answering any questions right now, but when he saw that every single one of his teammates was being pestered in a similar manner and not going anywhere, he decided to give in and stay for a few minutes. He was planning on retiring next year, anyhow. Might as well enjoy the spotlight a _little_. ¨Well,¨ he began, ¨after what we've been through to get to this point, standing here today feels pretty good…¨

As the dejected Thunder Crash were translocated out of the arena one-by-one, Gorn and the rest of the Dark Phalanx continued to give interviews, answering the barrage of questions as concisely as they could and looking for an opportunity to translocate back to the Gladiator's lobby. After several minutes had passed, Farham even asked a couple times to be translocated out, but it appeared nobody was listening, and the cameras continued their assault (¨Wait, please sir, one more question…What would you say your influences for entering the Tournament were? What made you decide to be a Gladiator?¨)

The press harassment lasted for what seemed like an eternity although it was probably more like half an hour, all of the gladiators eventually beginning to protest. Finally, Gorn got fed up. ¨Enough!¨ he roared. ¨No more comments today! Now can somebody please take us to the lobby?¨ This seemed to be the prompt that the cameras were waiting for to lay off. In one motion, they all wheeled away into the air without a word of thanks and disappeared. ¨About flippin' time,¨ muttered Anna. A couple seconds later, they were translocated out of the arena.

The lobby turned out to be empty, all the members of the Thunder Crash long gone as they walked alone across the intricate tiled floor that said ¨Tempest¨ in brilliant jade against polished jet inside of a bright quartzite ring. As they neared the portals to exit, Farham stopped and frowned. ¨Hey,¨ he said. ¨Do those look like they're turned off to you guys?¨

¨They definitely do,¨ agreed Anna. ¨I guess we were in there so long that they forgot to wait for us to leave before switching 'em off.¨ She walked over to the portal and felt along its inside rim. It was unlit and inactive. ¨Hey!¨ she yelled at one of the cameras lining the inside of the lobby. ¨Turn the portals on!¨ They waited.

After a couple minutes without results, Ivana tapped the Public line on her comm and said, ¨Hey, this is the Dark Phalanx… somebody turned off the translocators here in the gladiator's lounge and we can't get out. Is anybody listening?¨ There was no reply.

Above them, the last of the spectators strolled out of the public lounge, passing by a bank of monitors that showed live video from the cameras all over Tempest. The last two monitors showed a simple open lobby, with glowing translocator portals on opposite sides. The black floor of the lobby was decorated with a white tile circle around the words ¨Tempest¨, in striking green tile. There was nobody there.


	24. Scene 24

**Scene 24**

Malcom glanced anxiously around the small café, expecting at any moment that someone would walk in and recognize him and force him into some inane conversation about the highlights of his Tournament career or what it was like to be a Gladiator. He disliked hanging out in lower-class public places, but this was apparently where Anna wanted to meet him and, reflecting on the puzzling events of his life over the past few weeks, his curiosity had gotten the better of him. He took the note out of his pocket now and read it again, searching the cryptic scrawl for some detail or clue he might have missed the first ten times he'd read it.

_You are being used as a pawn in a much larger game. We're not doing it. If you want to know who is, meet me at the Shortwave Café on 49th and Franklin at 6. DO NOT go to FenTech. Be careful trusting anyone, especially yourself._

_Anna._

No matter how many angles he studied the problem from, it just didn't seem to line up. It was like looking through a pair of binoculars with one of the two lenses out of focus. Why should he trust someone who was an opponent of his in such a high-stakes contest as the Tournament? What could they possibly gain by helping him?

For some inexplicable reason, he felt inclined to believe most points in the note, especially the part about staying away from FenTech. It rang true with his gut feeling, even though this seemed to defy simple logic. But… be careful trusting himself? What the hell? He felt that something huge was looming just around the corner of his world, barely out of sight, something he might have caught a glimpse of in his dreams. He was ignorant of many things that he felt urged to figure out, and quickly. Trusting Anna was a risk, but what other option did he have? Everyone else seemed to be knowingly keeping things from him.

Where the hell was Anna, anyways? It was already 7 pm, and it seemed unlikely that she could have gotten stuck at the arena for _that_ long after the match. What if something had happened to her? A disturbing thought, to be sure. He distracted himself by taking another look around the café, a well-kept rustic brick place scattered with outdated inventions mostly from the communications revolution of the 20th century, such as telegraphs, radios, huge clunky desktop computers and printers, and many different styles of telephones. It was actually pretty fascinating, almost like a museum. The majority of these machines Malcom recognized only because he'd seen pictures of them in books at school. Once things in his life normalized, maybe he should take a break from Rudy's and check out more of the older places in New York.

¨Sir?¨ Malcom jumped slightly, then tried to disguise it by turning quickly to face the waiter who had snuck up on him. ¨Yes?¨

¨Uh, my manager says that, well, if you're not going to order, you're going to have to, uh, go someplace else, because, well, you know…¨ The pale youth petered out miserably, scrupulously avoiding eye contact. The kid must recognize him, he thought, but what a jackass of a manager! Didn't he know who was sitting in his restaurant? He bit down his indignation. Anonymity was better right now. He glanced at the ceiling for a moment, appearing to think, then turned to the waiter. ¨Well, I guess I'd like that thing you guys make.¨

¨The thing?¨

¨Yeah, the one with the stuff. You know what I'm talking about, right?¨

¨Uh, well, I…¨ the waiter stammered as he scribbled something on his notepad.

¨Great! I hate it when I sit down in a restaurant and the staff can't take a simple order. Really ruins my day. Thanks, kid.¨ He glanced over at the distressed youth's notes:

1 THNG W/STUF

¨That's it. And bring me a drink, one of those sweet things, but not too sweet, and maybe a little bitter. Excellent. Off you go.¨

As soon as the waiter had fled, he got up from the table, taking one more glance around the place. No sign of Anna, just some oriental guys playing cards near the bar, a family digging their way into bowls of spaghetti, and a weird-looking bald dude wearing outdated armor and a breather on his face sitting by himself in a booth, who glanced away suspiciously as soon as Malcom looked towards him. Who the hell dressed up like that to go eat? Was he being followed? It was definitely time to leave. He'd just have to get in touch with Anna later.

Malcom walked briskly towards the door, contemplating his brief interaction with the table-waiting staff of the Shortwave Café. He felt kind of bad, since the kid was probably a fan of his. But man, was he ever in a lousy mood, and he figured he had some good reasons to be what with all the things he had on his mind, not to mention losing the TDM championship and simply being tired out from the match. Right now he needed to get home, see his daughter awhile, rest and relax… tomorrow he would be thinking more clearly.

Outside it was pouring buckets of rain, a perfect complement to Malcom's bitter mood. He savored the dreariness for a moment before turning right to head down the side of the street, failing to notice through the darkness and downpour the light industrial jet coach that pulled silently out from the curb behind him and rolled along, lightless, about ten meters back. He also failed to hear its doors open when it stopped, disgorging three ghoulish figures in glinting full suits of armor, their yellow mechanical eyes burning in the night. It was a premonition rather than his physical senses that finally caused him to turn around. The hair suddenly stood up on the back of his neck and a fleeting chill passed through his bones, giving him just enough warning to see the gauntleted hands reaching out to grab him and the sleep-sprayer being thrust into his face, before the dimness of the night and the yellow suffusing glow of the street lamps and the watery roar of the rain all faded into a grey hum.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Hunter watched from the café door as Malcom's limp form was tossed into the back of the coach like so much baggage being packed for a camping trip. He waited as the vehicle pulled out and took off, lurching into the air with a thrust from its lower turbines, then moving up and away with increasing speed. Only after it had disappeared into the night sky did he step into the street, pulling out his handheld and switching it to Geographic mode, then selecting the special function of ¨Position Tracker.¨ An overhead street map of the city appeared, centered around a blinking red dot that flickered across streets and buildings, continuing towards the massive industrial area south of the city.

Hunter put away the handheld and jogged down the street, ignoring the water that splashed across his bald head and down into the cracks of his armor, dribbling through and running down his body. He needed to find a local translocation booth as soon as possible, get to the main New York terminal, and be ready to translocate to the wherever that Corrupt light industrial jet coach stopped. When he'd stuck the tracking device on their coach back in Vancouver, he hadn't really been expecting the night to amount to much, but the kidnapping of Malcom that he'd just witnessed indicated that he'd stumbled across a lead into the same operation Anna had been investigating. It was an opportunity he couldn't afford to miss.


	25. Scene 25

**Scene 25**

¨Hello, this is Ivana of the Dark Phalanx, we're stuck in the Tempest lobby, can anyone hear me? Hello, this is Ivana of the Dark Phalanx, we're stuck in the Tempest lobby, can someone please turn on the portals? Hello…¨

¨TURN ON THE FUCKING PORTALS!¨

Ivana brusquely pushed Anna away from her comm device, wincing. ¨Ouch, Anna, was that necessary? I think you only succeeded in hurting my ears there.¨

¨Sorry. I'm just getting kind of frustrated, and anyways, it's pretty obvious nobody is listening to you. We've been here for hours!¨

¨Well, that's no excuse not to try, we don't want to miss an opportunity if someone happens to be listening to this line for a few moments.¨

¨You should probably save your breath,¨ Gorn said, sighing. ¨I don't think this is an accident.¨

Ivana looked at him angrily, opened her mouth to speak, then looked down, struggling to make the words come. Finally, she said ¨No, I don't think it is either. Somebody wants us to be stuck here and it's not too hard to figure out why.¨

¨Would any of you like to explain to me what's going on?¨ piped up Farham. ¨I think I deserve to know what in the hell…¨

¨Hey!¨ exclaimed Anna. ¨The portal over there in the corner! It's…¨ They all turned around and followed the direction of her finger to one of the arena entrance portals. A dim, flickering green glow had appeared around its edges, seeming to grow brighter and steadier as they watched. A barely audible hum began to course through the air. They all jumped to their feet and ran over to inspect the portal. Upon nearing it, they could see that it had definitely been turned on, the seams around its edge glowing brightly with energy.

¨Do you think somebody heard me yell?¨ Anna asked.

¨I doubt it,¨ said Gorn, shaking his head slowly. ¨Why open a portal back into the arena?¨

¨This feels like a trap,¨ Ivana remarked.

¨Trap shmap, we're Gladiators,¨ asserted Farham. ¨At the very least, we can get some practice in. Maybe somebody will see us from the spec lounge!¨

¨Wait!¨ cried Ivana as he ran to the portal, but it was too late. With half his body in, Farham managed to say ¨Wha-¨ and then the rest of him was pulled through. Ivana watched with a sinking feeling, staring at the portal for a few seconds after he was gone as if she could will Farham back. Finally, she looked up at her teammates and saw the grim readiness written in their faces. They knew what they had to do, and so did she. ¨Last one through's a rotten egg,¨ she said to Anna, plunging into the shimmering green light.

-------------------------------------------------------------

It was a well-known and overused cliché of sci-fi/horror material: In space, nobody can hear you scream. In the Martian space station Phobos, however, with its perimeter ion shields cradling a bubble of terrestrial air all throughout the station, this axiom did not hold true. On the contrary, the stillness of space had a distinct effect, the quietest whisper being audible here in the absence of that unnoticeable blanket of white noise present anywhere on teeming planet Earth. Screams in Phobos were quite a remarkable thing to hear, perhaps one reason it was chosen to be used as a Tournament deathmatch arena. Not that there weren't other reasons. Its winding corridors, interlaced in many vertical levels around a central shaft that dropped from the flat, open top of the station all the way down to its lowest level, created unlimited angles from which to attack and hide. Many Gladiators disliked Phobos, repudiating it as too tight, confused, and favorable to ultra-defensive tactics and spam. In fact, the opposite was true. A Gladiator who truly knew Phobos moved through it like a ghost, striking when and where they desired and controlling the use of the jump boots, making sure they had all the best options of retreat.

¨What… what are we doing here?¨ wondered Farham, looking with confusion at his teammates. ¨What happened to Tempest? Goddammit, what is going on?¨ They were standing on the open top of Phobos at the edge of the central shaft, surrounded by a cold and unblinking sea of stars.

¨Almost any portal can be connected to almost any other portal if you hold the keys to it,¨ answered Anna. ¨The real question is, why does someone want us to be here?¨

¨That's what I meant,¨ Farham said angrily. ¨At least one of you is involved in something and isn't telling me or the others about, because otherwise why would this be happening? I've always been a loyal member of this team, I deserve to know.¨

¨It's a long story,¨ admitted Gorn, ¨And I'd like to start by apologizing to you, because it's a dangerous situation and I never intended to drag you into it. However…¨

¨Gorn,¨ interrupted Farham. ¨Was I not with you in Warsaw throughout all of the Siege?¨

¨Of course, comrade. How could I forget that?¨

¨I faced almost certain death with you then, and I would do it again gladly. But commander, I would like to know why.¨

¨Of course. Listen, you know about the chem booster company Fen Tech, right?¨

¨Yes…¨

¨About a week ago, when I was researching information about Malcom…¨

CRACK!

Ivana saw, as if observing a horrible dream in slow-motion, Farham's head rent by the unseen bullet in a flash of flying blood, bone, and brain matter. As his body pitched forwards, toppling slowly into the center shaft of Phobos, she screamed ¨SNIPER!¨

The three remaining Dark Phalanx members jumped simultaneously into the shaft, each flying off in a divergent direction. Gorn sprang down lightly to his left and landed deftly on the ledge of a narrow window, stepping forward to pick up the body armor. Ivana jumped down to her right onto a narrow beam running across part of the center shaft, then quickly slipped off the beam, hanging to the sides of it and swinging herself over to a narrow ledge near the minigun. Anna, having no other option available, jumped straight into the middle of the center shaft, aiming for the two health packs at the bottom. She plummeted more than ten meters and landed with a horrible crunch on the cement floor, feeling bones breaking in both her legs and possibly a rib or two as well. However, as soon as the flash of pain assailed her, it disappeared along with the two holographic health packs and she put her instantly-repaired legs to good use, running to the center of the bottom floor where she saw Farham's crushed body. Why was it still there? Oh no…

¨GUYS!¨ She screamed into her comm, a touch of hysteria in her voice, ¨The respawners are off! Can you hear me? Farham's dead! There's no respawn! They killed Farham!¨

¨…shit…¨ was the only thing Gorn could apparently think to say, his usually deep, commanding voice reduced almost to a near-whisper. ¨Farham…¨

Then Ivana's voice cut across the line, clear, focused, with all the authority she manifested as Captain during Tournament matches. ¨Meet me at the big lift. Defend yourselves! We've still got guns, at least.¨ There was an agonizing pause.

¨Roger that!¨ responded Anna, a ring of clear determination in her voice. A second later, Gorn chimed in: ¨On my way.¨

Ivana contined from the minigun up a small flight of stairs and around a corner to her left into a narrow hallway which contained the shock rifle, open on one side to the center shaft. She sprinted down it without slowing, running over the shock rifle to pick it up and hearing as she did the sound of the rocket launcher being gathered by Anna below her in the bottom of the central shaft. She turned left again and ran towards the big lift that went up to the top of Phobos, falling in behind Gorn who dropped down from the body armor and headed towards an outside ledge which contained the flak cannon, jump boots, and thigh pads. She ran past the big lift and then turned around, aiming her shock rifle at the two entrances to their position. ¨Got your back, Gorn!¨ Just as she said this, a figure emerged from a passage to her right, holding a ripper at ready. Through the adrenaline of battle, she barely managed to register the characteristic full-body carbonium armor and mechanical eyes. They were facing the Corrupt.

He quickly took a shot at her, which she'd already begun to dodge, firing a shock secondary bubble in front of him as she felt the wicked spinning blade whiz past her head, slicing off a few stray strands of hair. She doubled back as he fired again, once more barely avoiding the razor-sharp projectile and straining to direct all her concentration towards not missing that shock bubble. She fired as soon as she got both feet under her, somehow managing to detonate the combo mere inches from the Corrrupt assassin's chest. He was thrown backwards as if hit by a bullet space-train, slamming into the wall behind him with a crash of metal. Ivana watched in amazement as, weakly, he tried to sit up. How could anyone survive a combo at that kind of range? Who made the armor these things wore? She took him down for good with a shock primary beam, watching with dismay as his body disappeared.

¨Bad news, team. They're respawning, even though we're not.¨

¨That's super,¨ commented Gorn behind her. ¨Who are they?¨

¨More Corrupt, as if I had to tell you. I don't know how many. At least two. Anna, how are you doing?¨

There was a hiss of jump boots, and a barely-perceptible shimmering form ran out of the corridor to Ivana's left, a panting sound coming from its general direction. ¨Man, this rocket launcher is heavy. Sorry, I stopped to gear up. You all ok?¨

¨For now. Listen: you both know how this map works in Tournament matches, and this will be no different, except that we can't get fragged even once. We need to secure the top of Phobos to maintain control of the armors and amp, and keep them from cornering us. Gorn, you go blow that camper off the top of the big lift with some flak, then jump down to the main top platform… The fall should be no problem with your jump boots.¨ Ivana pulled out her minigun and tossed it behind her. ¨Take this also and see if there's anyone else up top that needs killing. With your armor, pads, and minigun you have by far the best odds of survival. Anna, come with me back past the shock rifle again. With the invisibility and jump boots you should be able to jump up to that sniper rifle above the small lift with no problems. I have the weakest equipment, so I'll take the small lift and stay in the sheltered spot at its exit.¨

Gorn jogged up behind her and picked up the minigun, running his hands over its barrel. ¨Thanks, Ivana. I never feel scared when I have a nice warm minigun in my hands.¨

¨Great. Now let's get to it!¨

Ivana and Anna waited, guarding the entrances to their position by the big lift, while Gorn ran onto it and pressed the button. As soon as the lift started to rise, they took off back towards the shock rifle corridor. Ivana let Anna take the lead, hearing her load up rockets into the firing chambers. As they rounded the corner, Ivana saw another armored figure emerge at the far end of the shock rifle corridor. Four rockets suddenly appeared in front of her, fired from Anna's invisible gun, racing down the corridor towards the enemy. He (it?) retreated quickly as the rockets slammed into the wall just behind where he'd been standing. Anna continued to advance, spamming rockets towards the corner where the Corrupt had emerged. ¨Get past me and jump on that lift!¨ she told Ivana. ¨I'll be right up.¨

Ivana sprinted past Anna to the lift, feeling the singeing heat of anther rocket as it whizzed past her shoulder. ¨Careful, dammit!¨

¨I know what I'm doing!¨

The lift rose automatically as Ivana got on it, and she experienced a momentary stab of fear when she realized someone might be waiting right there for her, and she would be without backup for a few seconds at least. Luckily, when she reached the top of the lift there was nobody in sight. ¨How are you doing, Gorn?¨ she sent across the comm.

¨Son of a bitch put a couple dents in my armor, but I'm solid. I put a lot more holes in him. Careful when you girls get up top, there's another here that just got the damage amp.¨

¨Shit. Does he have any weapons?¨

¨Just the sniper rifle.¨

¨Shit!¨

¨I'm going to take him out from here.¨

¨Gorn, you're the worst sniper I have ever seen. Let Anna do it.¨

¨Already on it, chief!¨ cut in Anna, almost managing to sound cheerful. Her words were punctuated by four CRACKs of a rifle. Ivana was horrified to hear the harsh bell of the amp being used in conjunction with two of these, then there was silence. ¨Status!¨

¨I'm fine, bastard never saw me. I think Gorn might have gotten hit, though.¨

¨I'm all right,¨ said Gorn, but it sounded laborious. ¨Secure the top now, I gotta go find some health packs.¨

¨The hell you will,¨ countered Ivana. ¨Get these vials where I'm at. Nobody is going down into the center of this map if we can avoid it… there's too many ways to get ambushed. I'm going to get the shield belt; Anna, can you cover me?¨

¨Definitely.¨

¨Good.¨ Ivana ran around the side of the lift, scanning by habit the rest of the top of Phobos. There was no more opposition. She saw Gorn drop about ten meters from the sniper's nest, landing awkwardly and barely managing to get his feet under him for the cushioning burst of the jet boots. Blood leaked from a hole in the chest of his armor, but he could move, and he jogged painfully over towards the health vials behind Ivana. She turned away and sprinted towards the shield belt before something else bad could happen.

¨Hey there, Gorn, it's nothing serious, right?¨ asked Anna.

¨Health vials… should take care of it,¨ he panted. There was a bright chime as he walked over a health vial, then another, and another. After the fifth and final one, he seemed to be moving with more ease, but still in pain. ¨Gorn,¨ said Anna, concerned, ¨chief, listen, you'll be fine. I'm sure you will. You're made of steel.¨

He turned towards her still-invisible form on the ledge above him and smiled painfully. ¨I'll live until the vials spawn again, but I'm not going to be doing much fighting. You should go get the next body armor before that invis wears off.¨

Anna glanced towards Ivana, who was just coming back from the shield belt's precarious ledge onto the main upper platform, her body surrounded by shimmering yellow energy.. ¨Ivana, you solid?¨

¨Yeah, do what Gorn says and go get that armor.¨ She ran over to Gorn as Anna jumped off the sniper ledge and headed towards the body armor. ¨Hey big guy, mind lending me a rifle?¨

¨Not at all. I'm going to stay here for awhile.¨ He pulled a sniper rifle out of his pack and handed it to her. As she walked back towards the center of the top platform, a clatter of minigun bullets pinged off its metal surface, missing Ivana's foot by inches. She swore and dove behind the lift, where Gorn was huddled. ¨Gorn, did you get an angle?¨

¨Flak cannon.¨

¨Thanks.¨ She dodged out from behind the other side of the lift with her sniper rifle pointed towards the flak cannon area, seeing a minigun barrel poking over a raised portion of the top of the station that afforded limited cover, and the barest outline of the enemy behind it. More bullets whizzed past her, several hitting her shield belt's energy field, and she ducked behind the lift again. ¨Anna, you see that guy? I can't get a clear shot.¨

Just then, she heard the telltale hiss of jump boots being used, and fairly nearby. She peeked out from towards the side of the central shaft where the shock rifle corridor ran. Sure enough, a Corrupt warrior was landing agilely there, holding a shock rifle. Ivana trained her sniper rifle on him, but he jumped again onto the sniper rifle's ledge above her. She dodged out away from the ledge, pulling a shock rifle out of her pack. The assassin picked up the sniper rifle and turned to face her, but he was already much too late… her combo blew him backwards off the ledge and down into the central shaft before he could take a shot. She ran out into the center of the top area again just in time to see the other Corrupt, who had ambushed her with the minigun, being knocked around by rockets apparently coming from thin air. Anna suddenly appeared, her invisibility's time having run out, just as the final rocket put her opponent out of commission.

¨Anna, you ok?¨

¨Shot my foot with a couple rockets, but I still have some body armor left. You?¨

¨I'm doing excellent. But unfortunately they'll just come back.¨

¨Yeah, that sucks. And how the hell do we get out of here?¨ They both ran towards the middle of the top platform, looking around at the various entrances for more attackers. ¨Why don't you keep an eye on the flak side from over there close to Gorn, and I'll watch the main shaft from the base of the sniper tower?¨ suggested Ivana.

¨That sounds like a good…¨ Anna cut out, her attention suddenly grabbed by something behind Ivana. ¨Oh my god…¨

Ivana turned, and gasped. Standing on the top of Phobos a few paces behind her, in more or less the same location they had been translocated to, was a familiar figure. She would have known this man, or rather the pseudo-human gladiator he had made himself into without need of any introduction. He was recognizable by his sleek humanoid robotic figure, his yellow band of visual sensors, his swept-back cranial antenna that looked almost like a spoiler for a sports car melded to the sides of his helmeted head, and his flat-green anodized carbonium armor. But any possibility of doubt she might have had was erased when he spoke in that insolent robotic voice:

¨Run, human.¨


	26. Scene 26

**Scene 26**

Hunter had waited anxiously in New York's main terminal for the arrival of the Corrupt's jet coach, watching their progress on his handheld until they flew over the city. The red dot advanced over the streets of the eastern american metropolitan complex on his tracking device's overhead map, coming to rest over a large building out towards the edge of the southwestern edge of the developed area which the map identified as a depot for Liandri Corporation. Wasting no time, Hunter walked to the nearest translocation terminal available and entered the universal coordinates displayed on his tracker, selecting the option to be translocated into the nearest booth to his destination. The booth told him he could get within a block of it, and he hurriedly punched the option to confirm, walking into the translocation portal almost before it was activated.

He emerged from the translocation booth on a gritty street in a grim industrial neighborhood, the lamplights shining a dull yellow on broken cement sidewalks and weedy abandoned lots. Hunter, fixing his position on the tracker, saw that the building he was looking for was one block in front of him. He looked up. There it was, the outline of a huge warehouse looming dimly ahead through the sulfurous glow of the lamps. Even from this distance, he could read the whitish dully-lit words ¨Lia dri C rp.¨ on the front of the building.

Without hesitating, he jogged up the street towards the warehouse, taking more detailed stock of his surroundings as best he could as he moved. The area seemed pretty much uninhabited and barely worked, a few lights on in the windows of the old factories that lined the street, the night shift probably recycling the scrap of the day's work. The entire area was slowly recycling itself away into nothingness.

At the edge of the warehouse property he reached a tall, sturdy cyclone fence, clambering up it quickly before someone could spot him and hopping over with laughable ease. The only evidence of his passage were a few bent spots in the razor wire, newly decorated with grey scraps of cloth tugged off by the barbs that scraped and grabbed uselessly at his armor. As he landed agilely on the hard, bare ground beyond, Hunter did another quick but thorough scan of surroundings and noted that, although the grounds seemed to be quite deserted, the depot had a small gatehouse out front about 50 meters away. Its light was turned on and he thought he saw a figure seated inside, slumped down in a posture of comfortable rest.

Hunter snorted and jogged over to the main entryway, passing by the gatehouse and approaching the front of the building. There was a steel revolving door with an out-of-date Matcher which appeared to be the main pedestrian entryway, slightly up and to the right from the cargo entrance, a big ramp that dipped down to into the building. It was closed off by a set of gigantic steel shutters. Hunter paused and considered the problem. Would this place have a security system? Probably. But he might be able to avoid it cutting through certain parts of the shuttered cargo entrance, whereas that revolving door probably had a net of detectors too tight for a human body to pass through on the other side.

Jogging down the ramp, he pulled a mini-cutter out of his slim pack and tucked it into the neck of his armor, wishing not for the first time that his mouth were free to accomplish such tasks once in awhile. Upon reaching the shutter, Hunter stepped onto the handles near the bottom and reached up above his head with the mini-cutter, turning it on and carefully cutting out a narrow slot about three inches wide. When it was done, he reached up and lodged the fingers of his non-cutter hand firmly in the slot and reached as high as he could with the other, cutting another slot. Hunter pulled himself up to it by pure force of his ¨lodged¨ arm, and stuck the mini-cutter in the neck of his armor again, grabbing onto the slot with his free hand. He pulled himself up farther, beginning to cut another slot above his head as he hung on by one arm, trying to increasing his support as best he could by bracing his soft-soled boots against the shutter's metal.

After working with ghostly silence through four agonizingly difficult cuts, Hunter reached the top. He cut into the spool the shutter rolled around, now thin with the majority of its cargo unrolled below it, and hung gratefully by both hands for a moment, resting. When he felt strong enough to continue, he pulled the mini-cutter out again with one hand and cut a square aperture just big enough for his body to pass through near the top of the shutter, carefully leaving one of the lower corners attached so he could bend the sheet outwards without it falling off and clattering on the cement below. He stowed the mini-cutter again in his pack and carefully inserted his feet into the hole, grabbing the upper edge of it with one of his hands and pulling himself through until he was balanced on the edge, the sharp metal resting against the armor plates on his back. He twisted onto his stomach and continued through until he was hanging by his fingers again, on the inside.

Twisting his head around, Hunter looked into the darkened cargo bay. A light glimmered at the end of a smaller vehicle entrance up ahead that led deeper into the depot, but his immediate surroundings, once again, appeared deserted. He estimated the distance to the ground, lifted his feet up to chest level, bracing them against the shutter, and flung himself backwards as far as he could, seeking to pass over the range of any security sensors and land behind them. He flipped through the darkness, seeing in his mind's eye the ground coming up to greet him, and landed as softly as a cat. Hunter stayed crouched for a moment, listening for alarms, and when none came, he smiled to himself and turned, creeping deeper into the depot.

The smaller tunnel up ahead with the light in it appeared to be a rail line coming from the main center of the warehouse to the cargo bay. Hunter padded down it, hugging the walls as the light grew stronger and he began to distinguish details of the room at the end. It looked very large, and well-lit, but his view was partially blocked by a pile of boxes. The rails he was walking along curved to the left in front of the boxes and disappeared. If this was a place Liandri used for illicit activities, their strategy for defending it was brilliant. Stick your treasure in the middle of godforsaken nowhere where nobody would think to look, and defend the place like it contains nothing but a big pile of scrap, Hunter thought. Not too bad. Hell, that guard out front was probably _supposed_ to be sleeping.

As he reached the entrance into what he could now see was the main storage room of the depot, Hunter spotted a good corner behind the pile of steel boxes and ducked over to it, stopping at his makeshift hiding spot to listen once more. Although there were no voices, he heard the faint footsteps of a few people nearby to his right, and the scraping sound of something dragging along the floor. He thought he had a pretty good idea what that thing was. The footsteps appeared to be receding farther away, so Hunter waited a few more seconds and then peered around the edge of the boxes. The room he was in was enormous, occupied by various stacks of steel boxes of all sizes and colors. In the direction of the footsteps he'd heard was a group of three Corrupt, standing around a lone translocation portal, eerily silent. One of them was entering a destination in the portal's console, and two more held Malcom's limp figure between them.

As Hunter watched, the portal flickered on and the Corrupt began to enter it, the first going through alone, then the second two tossing Malcom's body in and following behind it. Then the warehouse was empty again, and the lights suddenly turned off, the portal's glow dying. Hunter crept out from behind the boxes and padded over to it. He had a small portal-hacker with him which could probably retrieve the information about the Corrupts' destination and authorize the machine to take him there, but it would take quite a bit of time. The trail might grow cold by then, or he might unwittingly walk into an ambush they would have the time to arm.

He considered his options. Normally at this point, he'd give up the chase. There were too many unknowns on the other side of that portal and he hadn't succeeded this long in his fight against the Corrupt by being stupid. On the other hand… he'd never get another chance like this. Hunter knew it; instinctively felt that the reason he'd given up so many times in the past was to preserve himself for tonight. Pulling off his pack, he reached around inside for the slim plastic sheath of the portal-hacker.


	27. Scene 27

**Scene 27**

Malcom came to slowly, struggling his way back into consciousness through a leaden blanket that weighed down on his limbs and eyelids. Before he could move freely, he was able to blink and raise his head, and when he glanced around he noted that his location looked a lot like an empty Tournament spectator lounge – spacious, high-ceilinged, filled with plush chairs and couches and a few bars, enormous video monitors hung at every possible angle. What was he doing here? And why did his shoulder ache like he'd just been given a shot? He groaned and squirmed around, managing to get one arm under his body and raise himself up enough to see more.

As Malcom looked around more closely, he realized that he recognized the place – it was the lounge for the arena Phobos Moon. How had he gotten here? He remembered leaving that café Anna had told him to go to, walking along outside, and then… somebody had grabbed him? So, he had been kidnapped. Anna must have betrayed him. The bitch! He should have known.

¨How do you feel?¨

Malcom started, looking awkwardly around him until he located the source of the voice to his left. Seated in a large black chair a few paces away was a thin man, his face illuminated by the pale glow of the console he had in his lap. He wore an elaborate headset with ear buds, a microphone, and several extra wires that connected to a metallic-looking band wrapped around his forehead. Because of the oddity of his appearance, it took Malcom a few seconds to recognize the man as Dr. Kilgard. What was he doing here? Malcom closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, willing the world to make sense. When he opened them again, Kilgard was still there. He'd removed the apparatus, whatever it was, and was examining Malcom with interest in his piercing gaze. ¨Better?¨

¨What… what are you doing here? What am _I_ doing here? Damn you, Kilgard, what's going on?¨

¨Relax, Malcom. You were apparently surprised and gassed by some hoodlums in a dangerous part of New York. I guess they weren't pleased with the results of the match today?¨ He gave Malcom a sympathetic smile. ¨Anyways, by luck they were spotted by the police forces and dropped you. The police called me, and I picked you up.¨

Malcom was recovering his bearings enough to think about the situation. ¨Why in God's name wouldn't the police call my family, Kilgard? And that doesn't explain what we're doing at Phobos, for chrissakes.¨

¨Ah, well, you see I notified the police beforehand that if anything should happen to you, they were to tell me first. As for what we're doing here… I'm working on a Tournament-related test, and well, you and I need to talk.¨

¨You're damn right we do. What…¨

¨Wait, Malcom, let me explain,¨ Kilgard hurriedly pre-empted him. ¨First of all, you were right about the treatment. There was a defect caused by a new component that we had been testing to increase mental acumen. It worked stunningly in matches, but after awhile we began to realize it had several serious side effects, such as the ones that you described. We even had a gladiator with a psychotic episode. Not pretty eh? But that's why I notified the police to keep an eye out for you.¨

¨Kilgard, why didn't you tell me?¨ Malcom fumed. ¨And what about…¨

¨Look,¨ Kilgard interrupted again, ¨you're right about that too, I owe you an apology. I'm sorry you weren't notified. Mental performance enhancers are looked at pretty warily by our investors, and we didn't have the funding to proceed officially with that testing. So I selected a few subjects to test the product on and accumulate a bit of positive data before making my case to our sponsors.¨

¨Why DIDN'T you notify me? Why all the secrecy?¨

¨Corporate higher-ups might have canceled the project. And also, you gladiators might have refused to test it out. It was a risk I couldn't afford to take.¨

¨But it was a risk _I_ could afford to take, right, doctor?¨ Malcom's stare burned into Kilgard with an accusing intensity. ¨You were right about something, too. If I'd known about this shit, I would've refused to participate.¨

¨Yes, well, nobody knew these kinds of side-effects were going to occur, did we?¨ Kilgard replied calmly, soothingly. ¨Because of your description of the problems you were having and especially what happened today I was able to isolate the flaw, and the next formula should function optimally – all the benefits, none of the drawbacks.¨

¨The next formula?¨ Malcom laughed incredulously. ¨Forget it Doc. I'm done with this. You know what pisses me off the most about the whole thing? That I _need_ your cursed formula. Something went wrong in that match and those mental enhancers stopped working, if that's even possible. Without them, I didn't have what it took to keep up with Gorn and his team in the TDM arena. That's the truth. I didn't get to be where I am in the Tournament by lying to myself. I'd become dependant on your chemicals! Well that's all over. I'm better than Gorn, and I'm going to prove it by beating him without anybody's help, _especially_ yours.¨ Kilgard opened his mouth to say something, but Malcom cut him off by sharply raising his hand. He was on a roll now. ¨Whatever it is, Kilgard, you can stow it. I don't like the way you do things. You came to my house without telling me. My house! My daughter said you gave me some kind of treatment there, and then told her and my wife to keep quiet about it. I don't know how you managed to get them to do it, but you went way too far when you involved my family in your schemes. The only thing left that you can do for me is get me a portal out of here.¨

Kilgard didn't respond for quite some time. He kept staring at Malcom, with what looked like a strange mixture of curiosity and calculation, such as a medical doctor examines his subject. Finally he spoke, that thin shadow of a smile playing around his lips again. ¨So that's the way you feel, is it?¨

¨You're damn right it is.¨

He sighed, suddenly looking tired and irritated. ¨That's too bad, Malcom. You had amazing potential, you know. But I guess you couldn't accept what I'm doing, just like the others. You're too attached to your own importance, can't see the role you're playing in something far grander.¨

Malcom snorted. ¨Don't flatter yourself, Kilgard. And you mean the role I _was_ playing. Like I said, I'm done with you and FenTech.¨

Kilgard shook his head, his smile suddenly looking sinister in the glow of his console. ¨No, Malcom, this isn't over. Regrettably, I can't risk letting you run off and tell the media about my work. It hurts me to do this because of what you could have been, but I have to accept my own failures, and I shouldn't blame myself for yours. It's just a shame it had to come to this.¨

¨Doctor…¨ Malcom said, a creeping sense of fear and unease stealing over him, ¨what are you talking about?¨

¨With all your brains, Malcom, you still haven't figured it out?¨ Kilgard asked, his voice loaded with sickeningly insincere sympathy. ¨I told you once before and you didn't listen. Oh, but this time you will. It is time you learned something important.¨ He paused, carefully enunciating the words that followed. ¨You are mine.¨

Malcom gasped in surprise as he felt his consciousness overwhelmed by a wave of force. It was an odd feeling, like falling asleep without closing his eyes. Strangely, he noted that his body, rather than collapsing, seemed to straighten up and move, almost as though something else was commanding it. He remembered the sensation of watching his body from third person that he'd experienced in the match on Tempest, and now realized that it had only been a mere shadow of what he was feeling now. He watched with mute horror, unable to do or say anything as he saluted Kilgard.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Kilgard's subtle disappointed frown quickly disappeared, melting back into his usual expression of cool scientific detachment as he considered the ex-Gladiator that stood at rigid attention before him. Malcom really had been too good to become a Corrupt. He'd never perform as well under full control as before, when he was doing the majority of the work and only being influenced in more subtle ways. But sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.

Rather than speaking directly to the Gladiator, Kilgard picked up the headgear lying next to his console, adjusting the band to its correct position and tapping through some options on his keyboard for the program he was running. Then he spoke into the microphone, glancing up at Malcom. ¨Testing. Walk.¨ Malcom took a few steps forward, stopping when he arrived at a sofa. ¨Stop. Raise right hand.¨ Malcom's right hand shot up, as if a string was tied to it. ¨Lower. Speak test phrase.¨

The Corrupt warrior spoke, its voice Malcom's but with the measured quality of a synthesizer. ¨I'd – rather – be – dreaming - than - living,¨ it said. Kilgard nodded, satisfied, and delivered his orders. ¨Mission structure: find and capture Tournament gladiators Gorn, Anna, Ivana. Mission specifics: Take them alive using any method available and bring them to me. Four friendly units available. Defer to directives from unit codename Xan. Now enter Phobos arena.¨

The Corrupt warrior nodded curtly and walked across the lobby towards the exit portal. Kilgard watched on the monitors above his head as his warrior entered the Gladiator's lobby, continued purposefully across it, and entering a shimmering portal under a sign that said ¨Arena Entrance 1¨. Kilgard smiled again, despite himself. Now came the fun part. He supposed it wasn't too unscientific to enjoy this just a _little_.


	28. Scene 28

**Scene 28**

After Xan Kriegor appeared in the arena, the situation for the remainder of the Dark Phalanx began to deteriorate from bad to worse.

He was translocated in unarmed, and after uttering his dramatic proposal, Anna decided she might as well answer him while they had the chance. She calmly tossed her rocket launcher down in front of her and pulled the sniper rifle out of her pack, shouldering it and aiming carefully at Xan. ¨You want me to run, you rusty bucket of bolts? Why don't you pick up that rocket launcher and get to it, then?¨ Without hesitation, he strode towards the weapon, his very gait somehow arrogant. Anna let him take two steps and then nailed him directly in his visual sensors, his head snapping back and helmet partially flying off with the force of the high-caliber bullet. Xan's forward motion pulled him to his knees with a crash of metal, his upper body sagging backwards and then beginning to topple over to the side before it disappeared.

¨Had to,¨ Anna explained apologetically. ¨He'd have gone looking for a gun either way.¨

¨I… Yeah, I suppose so,¨ Ivana said, finding her voice. ¨I guess he must be Corrupt, too. These odds just keep getting worse. Have either of you faced Xan before? Because I sure haven't.¨ Anna just shook her head.

¨I did once,¨ replied Gorn over the comm. ¨We had an exhibition duel back in the days when I was considered one of the better 1v1 players around. The surprising thing about Xan for me was that, considering his fame, he was a pretty predictable player. Generally stuck to the same tactics and routes. I was even winning for the first part of the match, but then something happened… it was like he suddenly turned on all those mechanical and chemical enhancements he uses. He pretty much stopped missing me with his sniper, shock, and minigun. Wherever I was in the map, no matter how dark or far away, he'd see me. I thought I was sneaking up on him a couple times, but he always knew where I was. Like many other Gladiators have commented, he's inhuman. He can't be beaten by skill alone.¨

¨So what the hell do we do?¨ wondered Anna.

¨Like I said, he's predictable. Maybe we can avoid him long enough to think of something.¨

¨Great.¨

The Corrupt stayed hidden in the bowels of Phobos for about a couple minutes afterwards, giving Gorn time to pick up more health vials and heal himself completely, and also replenish his body armor. Anna was preparing to head out on one of the narrow side ledges to get the next shield belt as it spawned when the Corrupt made their move. It started with the hiss of jump boots. All three Dark Phalanx members heard the sound and turned to look at the shock ledge side of the central shaft. At first, nobody saw anything. Had their attacker failed his jump? But a burst of minigun fire in Gorn's direction told them differently, coming apparently from thin air near the central shaft.

¨Invisible enemy!¨ yelled Anna.

¨Shit,¨ swore Ivana, realizing that it had been a mistake to stay completely out of the bottom part of the map. They'd handed over two pairs of jump boots and the invisibility powerup to their enemies, not to mention a shock rifle, minigun, and probably sniper rifle. ¨Concentrate on taking out the invis!¨

Gorn fearlessly charged in the general direction of his attacker, spraying his own barrage of minigun bullets in response. Some of them probably hit, but he was coming under much heavier fire, bullets slamming into his armored chestplate. Ivana, sprinting to circle around behind Gorn's attacker, caught a glimpse of the invisible figure's shimmering outline and planted herself, firing a shock bubble directly towards it, figuring that even if he moved, part of the combo would still catch him. Through the echoing thunder of her combo, she heard the faint crash of an armored body being thrown to the ground a few yards to the left. She held down the secondary trigger of the shock rifle, advancing as she spammed a barrage of bubbles towards the fallen enemy. One of the bubbles suddenly stopped in midair, its energy dissipating as it popped against an invisible barrier.

Gorn saw where the shock bubble had impacted, and drew a bead on that spot with his minigun. The enemy, knocked around and stunned by Ivana's shock rifle, was caught directly in his stream of fire for fully a second and finally crumpled, its armored body appearing a second before it was translocated away to respawn. Jesus, these things were tough.

¨Gorn!¨ yelled Ivana, ¨you all right?¨

He took another step and said, ¨Yeah, I'm…¨ then stumbled, glancing down at his rent chestplate, blood pouring from dozens of holes. He looked up at Ivana with an expression of simple curiosity and wonder, and fell flat on his face.

¨Gorn! No!¨

¨Incoming!¨ screamed Anna, from somewhere over by the flak cannon. ¨Multiple enemies!¨

Ivana spun around and saw Anna frantically trying to stay alive in a rocket dogfight with Xan, while another Corrupt nearby ran towards her, shouldering a ripper and beginning to unleash a barrage of fire at Ivana. Dodging the ripper blades, Ivana stowed her shock rifle and pulled out the sniper rifle, struggling to draw a bead on the distant enemy while instinctively moving to avoid his fire. Two blades sunk into her energy shield, disrupting her aim, before she managed to get a decent shot off, seeing her attacker twitch as the bullet took him in the chest plate. He shrugged it off and continued to fire as if nothing had happened, but the moment of hesitation had allowed Ivana to plant herself and take careful aim at his head. That was when she heard the harsh voice from close behind her.

¨Who's the Champion now, betrayer?¨

She instinctively flung her body sideways, shoulder first, tucking and rolling back up to face in the direction of the speaker. Coming to her feet, she saw a man stood by the small lift's exit, bereft of the full-body armor she expected to see, holding a shock rifle. It was Malcom.

Before she could think more about his strange words and presence here, she was bumped forward by another ripper blade that slammed into her back, temporarily knocking her off balance. As she struggled to regain it, she saw Malcom shoot a shock bubble towards her, just to the right. With the relatively short range between the two of them, there was no time to dodge again to avoid the combo. It caught her with its full force, destroying the rest of her shield belt's energy armor and then some, throwing her body towards the edge of Phobos's platform. Stunned, she landed heavily on her back and rolled off the edge.

Slowly, Ivana began to fall through space away from the platform, no longer constrained by its artificial gravity field. She knew that in a few seconds she would be dead. Strangely, she felt neither anger nor self-pity, just a kind of detached disappointment that the bad guys were going to win. Gorn would have been disappointed in her too. Where was Gorn anyways? Hadn't he fallen right there, near the edge of the platform?

As she drifted helplessly towards the ion shield surrounding the station, her comm came to life with Anna's frantic voice saying ¨Help, Ivana, retreat to the…¨ A burst of static cut her off, in the same instant that Ivana felt the deadly ionic energy cut into her back.


	29. Scene 29

**Scene 29**

The portal-hacker emitted a series of beeping sounds, signaling that its work was finished. Hunter, leaning against the side of the portal, shook himself out of his daydream and moved in front of the console to inspect the results. It had taken far too long, but at least he might be getting somewhere now.

**Destination: Spectator's Lounge, Phobos Moon Tournament Arena, Mars Quadrant, Solar System**

**Teleport? Y N**

His immediate reaction was to frown in disbelief. That couldn't be right. Why in the world…?

But then again, why not? Malcom was a Gladiator, wasn't he? At any rate, Hunter knew that any more time he wasted here could only count against him, and he had no better ideas left. He touched the glowing ¨Y¨ on the console, stepping back as the edges of the portal lit up with that shimmering green light. Before going through, he reached back into his pack and pulled out an Enforcer pistol, his only weapon, running his fingers along the rude inscription he'd scratched along the barrel: THIS WILL END NO OTHER WAY. He thought about all he'd done to come to this place and stepped into the portal.

Hunter's first thought upon emerging in the spectator's lounge was how ludicrous it seemed to expect danger in such plush surroundings. So this was how rich people lived! Then again, you could reliably expect more treachery from their kind than poor folk, once you got to know both groups.

He moved in a crouch through the shadowy half-lit place, stopping in a protected corner where he could peer around most of the lounge and duck out of sight if spotted. Oddly, like most of the other places he'd been in this strange chase, there didn't seem to be anyone present. Had his portal-hacker failed? Had the Corrupt translocated somewhere else? Or was it a subtle trap?

Growing bolder with the lack of opposition, Hunter stood up and began to search the rest of the huge lounge. Coming around the side of one of the bars, he noticed a pale glow emanating from behind one of the couches in front of him and thought he heard a faint tap-tap-tapping noise. He readied his Enforcer and slinked over to the couch, peering over the back of it, and almost knocked his head against that of the man who was seated there. He pulled away silently, but didn't try to hide. Anybody oblivious enough to not have noticed his presence in the room by now obviously wasn't a threat.

The man was seated at a console, some kind of bizarre apparatus strapped to his head. He was tapping keys every once in awhile and appeared to be watching a movie, or maybe it was a live video feed, of a Tournament arena – Hunter guessed it was Phobos. Was the Gladiator wearing a camera on his helmet or something? He'd never seen a first-person view like this before, the camera bobbing as its carrier walked and sweeping back of forth as if following a person's line of sight. Occasionally a gauntleted hand or a weapon rose into view on the screen. Hunter decided to watch for a few moments, wondering what it meant.

The camera swung left, then right, its bearer apparently deciding which of two corridors to run down. It chose left, passing by a narrow ledge that Hunter thought looked open to its right side, then climbing a short flight of steps and stopping in small room open on the far to a sky full of stars, and occupied on the left side by a large industrial platform lift which had a woman standing on it, holding a sniper rifle at the ready. Hunter blinked. Was that Anna? The camera-bearer raised a rocket launcher and fired at her, but in the same moment he did the lift began to rise swiftly, bearing the woman away and the rocket exploded harmlessly against the wall.

As the camera view swung away in a different direction, Hunter did a quick mental revision of what he'd seen and concluded that it had definitely been Anna. Whatever was going on, it was time to ask the man at the console. He stepped up and pressed his Enforcer against the back of the man's head, reckoning it would get his attention quickly enough.

The man froze instinctively, then slowly raised his hands. ¨Take that thing off your head,¨ commanded Hunter in an icily smooth tone of voice. ¨Set it next to you on the couch and raise those hands again.¨ The man complied. ¨Now get up, turn around, and face me. Do it.¨ He complied again, the console sliding off his lap and clattering onto the floor as he did. When he turned around, Hunter gasped at the man's face.

¨Von Hetrick!¨

The man looked back at him, his cool gaze beginning to tense up with fear. ¨I… I have not heard that name in a very long time. Do I know you?¨

¨Not as well as I know you, you reprehensible monster,¨ Hunter replied. His throat felt swollen with by the bitter venom that he couldn't manage to keep out of his voice. ¨Does the name Grendel Research Facility mean anything to you?¨

¨No…¨ whispered the man, his barely-disguised fear turning to outright horror. ¨It isn't possible. There were no survivors.¨

¨Wrong, Von Hetrick. Heh, you said you hadn't heard that name in quite some time. What are you calling yourself now, then?¨

¨My name is of little…¨

Hunter pushed the barrel of his Enforcer into one of the man's nostrils and smiled mirthlessly. ¨Oh, _do_ humor me.¨

¨K… kilgard. Doctor Francis Kilgard.¨

¨Wonderful. Actually, you can call yourself whatever you want, as far as I am concerned. Either way, you are barely worth killing. Barely, but I must admit it would make me feel good.¨

¨Wait… don't…¨ the doctor protested.

¨Fear not, doctor. Why don't you just tell me what you know about a Gladiator named Anna who fights with the Dark Phalanx?¨ Hunter leaned forward until his mask was even with the stock of his Enforcer, looming over Kilgard's face. ¨I would _really_ appreciate it. There is a small chance I might even let you live, if you don't try to lie to me.¨

Kilgard took a shuddering breath and began talking. ¨She's… she and her teammates have been interfering with my research. I opened a portal to Phobos after the Dark Phalanx's match from the Gladiator's lobby.¨ He glared at Hunter with as much defiance as he could muster. ¨I'd rather she were one of my test subjects. It seems fair, after all the unjustified damage she's done to my…urk!¨ His words died suddenly as Hunter grabbed him by the throat and lifted him straight up off the floor with one arm. ¨Maybe you would like to reconsider that?¨ he asked Kilgard. The doctor did his best, under the circumstances, to nod.

Hunter released him and resumed attempting to wedge his Enforcer up Kilgard's nose. ¨You are not done yet, doctor. Where is the gladiator Malcom?¨

¨Malcom?¨ asked the doctor, massaging his throat. ¨He's not here. I don't know what you're….aaargh!¨ His words were once again truncated, as Hunter quickly and expertly grabbed one of Kilgard's hands and snapped a finger. His gun was back at the doctor's temple in a fraction of a second, his grey eyes sparkling in cold fury inches from Kilgard's. ¨I warned you not to lie to me, Hetrick! Go ahead if you want, but keep in mind that you're just making this more enjoyable for me, you despicable reptile!¨ Kilgard sobbed his way through a few breaths, trying to find his voice.

¨What was that?¨ asked Hunter. ¨Speak up, or I may get bored and break some more.¨

¨Phobos… in Phobos with… Dark Phalanx.¨ Tears squeezed out of the corners of his agony-screwed eyes.

¨Doing?¨

¨He's… another test subject.¨

Upon hearing Kilgard's last statement, Hunter's nimble mind assembled several pieces of the puzzle he had been giving much thought to lately. Malcom was Corrupt. He'd suspected as much. The doctor must be using him, along with who knew how many other Corrupt warriors, to capture the Dark Phalanx members in Phobos. Maybe he could create some kind of intervention, now that he had some bargaining power.

¨Good news, Kilgard! We're going to the Phobos arena. As it turns out, you've changed your mind about the Dark Phalanx and you're going to tell your little minions to let them go.¨

¨Wait,¨ Kilgard pleaded, ¨they're…¨ Hunter grabbed one of his hands. ¨NO!¨ he shrieked. ¨All right… we'll go to the arena.¨

¨Excellent. Why don't you lead us over to that portal?¨

Hunter kept his pistol firmly pressed to the back of Kilgard's head as he walked across the lounge, stopping in front of the arena portal to enter in a few directions and a password. ¨All ready,¨ he said. Hunter grabbed the back of his shirt in a firm grip, shoving Kilgard forward into the portal as he stepped through it himself without a single word more.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The doctor stumbled as they emerged in Phobos, unused to translocation vertigo, but was quickly hauled to his feet again by Hunter. They were standing on top of the space station, looking into a large open space that dropped down through the center of it to the bottom floor. Hunter glanced around, sensing that they were in a vulnerable position to ambush, and dragged Kilgard over towards the side of the platform, a few inches from open space. Kilgard's eyes bulged as they moved towards the edge, but he said nothing. They could hear the sounds of battle coming from down in the center of Phobos, explosions of rockets and shock combos and the occasional rattle of a minigun. Hunter wondered what to do next. How would they negotiate with the situation apparently out of control?

After several more minutes, however, the sounds began to recede, as if being winked out one by one, until the arena was silent. What had been the outcome? Well, only one way to find out. ¨HEY!¨ he yelled, his voice ringing clearly through the silence of the arena. ¨Doctor Kilgard's here, and he wants to say something!¨

There was no sound. A couple minutes passed.

¨HEY!¨ Hunter shouted again. A few seconds after he said it, a quiet mechanical rasping reached his ears, like the turning of large industrial gears… metal on metal. He glanced over towards the lift below that low ledge stood with a sniper rifle on top of it. Presently, the door to the lift opened and several figures walked through it. The members of the Dark Phalanx, disarmed, went in front of three Corrupt warriors. Their heads were lowered. They moved sluggishly, as though unconscious or drugged. In front of them, walking stiff and straight with a shock rifle slung easily at his side, was Malcom. He saluted Kilgard, but paused when he saw Hunter with his gun to the doctor's head. In an instant, he was pointing his shock rifle at them. ¨Wait!¨ implored Kilgard. ¨Malcom, stop.¨ He stopped.

¨Why don't you tell those Corrupt goons to translocate out of here with the Dark Phalanx?¨ suggested Hunter into Kilgard's ear. ¨That'd be a really good start towards your getting out of here alive. Remember to tell them to come back, so I know my friends got away.¨ Kilgard nodded nervously, the skin on his temple stretching back and forth against Hunter's pistol. ¨Corrupt Units, translocate to point of last received instructions with prisoners. Report back here immediately afterwards.¨

The three corrupt saluted, each grabbing hold of one of the Dark Phalanx members around the waist and marking a few buttons on their wrist comm devices. With a shimmer of light, they disappeared. A few seconds later, they appeared again. ¨Captives delivered,¨ they said in unison.

Kilgard felt Hunter's grip on his arm loosen, and the gun pull partially away from his temple. He turned around and faced his captor, speaking with a sneer. ¨Well done, Hunter. But how will you get out of here, I wonder? In the arms of one of my warriors?¨ He gestured at the four impassive Corrupt standing before them. Wait… four? Where was Xan? Well, no matter. ¨I'm afraid you'll have a more difficult time bargaining for your own life than for that of your comrades.¨

Hunter stared at him impassively, the grey eyes betraying no trace of emotion. But when he spoke, his voice sounded almost… happy.

¨You're right, you know. I've known for a long time that it was my fate to die fighting you and your kind, because I am the first. But I now know that there are others that will rise up to replace me. The truth will be known, Kilgard.¨

¨Hardly.¨ The doctor's voice had regained its full measure of arrogance, despite the fact that its owner was trembling slightly with anger and pain. ¨Those friends of yours will be right where my warriors left them. Didn't you notice that they'd been drugged?¨

Hunter shrugged. ¨Well, even if that's the case, I can still end my crusade on a positive note. Tell me, Von Hetrick, do you know what is meant by a ´pyrrhic victory'?¨

In the moment it took say the last few, words, there was enough time for the arrogant scowl to slide right off Kilgard's face, then Hunter smoothly picked him up with both arms and flung him bodily backwards over his head into the void. As Kilgard's dismayed scream pealed forth behind him, Hunter looked levelly at the Corrupt warriors. This was it. Their weapons were raised, pointing at him. But why didn't they fire?¨

Malcom dropped his shock rifle and sighed in annoyance. ¨Too bad the little rat bastard will just respawn,¨ he said.

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Kilgard's world was shrunk down to a singularity, one moment of the most intense pain he could ever possibly have imagined experiencing. He ceased to exist. And then there was a wave of nausea, and he was crouched on his knees, dry-heaving on a cold metal floor as the warped world slowly swam into focus. Strangely, his broken finger no longer seemed to throb. What had happened?

Oh… the arena! Yes, of course, the arena had respawned him. Good thing he'd remembered to turn that feature back on after they'd taken care of that first Dark Phalanx member, the expendable one who'd never had the creativity even to oppose him in the first place. He began to laugh, despite the pain, looking up at the starry sky through the central shaft of Phobos that he now recognized. All that effort by Hunter for absolutely nothing! What irony. He wondered which test subject he'd been at Grendel. One of the failures, doubtless, and now he'd failed again. Well, that was what you'd expect to happen when lesser persons tried to defeat a visionary of his caliber. They should have spent more time studying Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. He got to his feet, already feeling more normalized. He might as well hurry up and get back to the lounge to see the faces of those Gladiators, and Hunter when he realized he'd failed.

¨Corrupt Units, come to my location!¨ he commanded, yelling for lack of his headset. A few moments passed. Where had those warriors gone to? He needed to revise their response time to commands.

With a dramatic whoosh of the jump boots' cushioning jets, Malcom dropped in from the sky above and landed right in front of Kilgard, startling him. Kilgard eyed him with annoyance. ¨Corrupt Unit Malcom, your response time is flawed. Explain this flaw.¨ His eyes grew as big as saucers when Malcom just laughed and pointed a shock rifle at him.

¨Since we're in a Tournament arena, this won't kill you,¨ he said nonchalantly, ¨but believe me, it really, really hurts.¨ Looking up along the long barrel of the shock rifle at the tall, sturdy gladiator, Kilgard suddenly felt extremely small.


	30. Scene 30

**Scene 30**

Back in the Phobos lounge, Kilgard stood surrounded by his enemies, the ¨drugged¨ Dark Phalanx who were now apparently wide awake, his test subject Malcom, his former minions the Corrupt, and his longtime enemy Hunter. There were eight of them, and they were all pointing guns at his head. He still refused to believe this was happening. ¨It's impossible! ¨he spluttered.

¨May I?¨ Anna asked, looking around at the other seven people present. They nodded their assent, and she turned back to Kilgard, smiling with mischievous pleasure. ¨Come on, Doctor, it wasn't even that hard.¨ He opened his mouth to offer more impotent denial, but closed it again when he realized he had nothing to say. Anna held up her comm device in front of his face.

¨Know what this is?¨

¨It appears,¨ he said sulkily, ¨to be a wrist-attaching Tournament communications device.¨

¨Hey, very good doc. See, you're not as dumb as I thought you were.¨ There was a chorus of laughter as Kilgard's face reddened, and then she continued. ¨These things have several functions. One of those, as you probably already knew, is to send signals to other comm devices. They're pretty versatile little toys, being derived from military hardware and all. And of course, I like to add some modifications to mine. If you know what you're doing, you can send a message to any device that receives radio waves. _Anything_. Like, for example, those nanomachines you're so obsessed with.¨

¨You used it too send noise to Malcom's nanomachines in the match,¨ Kilgard said, shrugging. ¨But you can stop acting so smug, since I know you didn't deactivate them. Someone must have betrayed me. You would have had to possess the nanomachines' self-destruct phrase, which is impossible.¨

¨Oh, but I did have that phrase,¨ she said, eyes twinkling. ¨I figured you would have to turn off those nanomachines somehow once I got my message into Malcom's head…¨

¨Hey!¨

¨Sorry about that, Malcom. It was for your own good. Anyways Kilgard, once I had a lock on that signal you were sending from the Tempest lounge and the decryption code for it, it was a pretty simple task to pick up anything that was being sent from there.¨

¨I knew that, too,¨ Kilgard said sullenly. ¨But there was so much noise coming in over that line, there's no way you could have picked out my message. The nanites would receive the words, but no human ear could pick it out.¨

Anna laughed out loud, this time. ¨Come on, doctor, you didn't think I'd spend those three or four hours sitting around on my ass in the Tempest lounge doing nothing at _all_, did you? There's this other extra feature my comm device has that I didn't tell you about yet. It records stuff, like, all the audio from our Tournament match. All I had to friggin' _do_ was run through the different tracks on that recording afterward and separate them by sender. Right before the time point in which the nanomachines stopped receiving, there's your voice coming in across that line from the lounge, clear as a bell: 'Athena beta 3.'¨ She spoke with a perfect imitation of his drily arrogant scientific tone. Hunter snickered. Anna winked at him, then continued. ¨The other Corrupt were hardly more difficult… it was a facile assumption that if Malcom's phrase didn't work on them, all I would have to do would be to play with the 'beta' numbers in it. Beta 2 did the trick, as it turned out.¨

Kilgard just stared at her, jaw agape. ¨I… you….my research! You can't do this? What have you done with Xan?¨

Anna shrugged. ¨I gotta give you some credit, it was a good idea having a flunky around who wasn't controlled by the nanomachines just in case something went wrong with them. Guess you should've picked someone dumber than Xan. Once he saw it was seven versus one and he'd be ruined if he got caught up in this, he hightailed it… translocated right out of the arena. Leaving you to fall into our hands.¨ She leaned over to him and smiled. ¨Now what should we do with you? Maybe I should ask these poor men who served against their will as your minions for these years.¨

Kilgard shrank back as the three fully-armored Corrupt strode up and loomed over him, somehow managing to look angry despite their lack of facial expressions. The considered him for a few moments until one finally spoke. ¨I lost my life because of you,¨ he said. ¨I lost my job. I lost my friends. I lost my family.¨ He grabbed Kilgard's shirt and pulled the doctor's terrified face right up to his metal mask. ¨I LOST MY FACE!¨ he roared.

Kilgard somehow managed to compose himself enough to point a shaking finger at the ceiling of the lounge. ¨Gentleman, might I remind you that your actions are being videotaped?¨

Anna snorted. ¨Little fucker's got a point. Keep in mind, guys… I understand how you feel, for sure, but if you wipe up that little grease stain here someone will probably see our faces and we'll end up as accessories to kidnapping or murder.¨

The Corrupt holding Kilgard sighed and released him. ¨Does that mean we have to let the bastard go, then?¨

One of his companions answered, speaking slowly in a country drawl that seemed totally unsuited to its owner. ¨Well, you know, I been thinkin' about this. I ain't got much to look forward to anymore besides killin' him.¨ He indicated Kilgard. ¨Once he's dead, I reckon I'll just have to go jump off a bridge or somethin'.¨

Hunter stepped forward and put his arm on the speaker's shoulder. ¨You may change your mind about that. I did. Maybe you three would like to come back to my place, see if you take to gardening. Then if we get bored we can go out and destroy some FenTech company property.¨

They looked at Hunter, considering his proposal. ¨You know,¨ drawled the one, ¨that don't sound too bad.¨

¨Actually, no,¨ agreed another.

¨I'm in,¨ said the third, ¨as long as you all keep in mind that I still intend to kill him someday.¨

¨Don't worry,¨ assured Hunter, ¨I'm sure we all do.¨ He looked over at Kilgard. ¨Don't get too comfortable, doctor.¨

Kilgard stared back at him, all the cool detachment of his poise gone, replaced by a bitter, petty hate. ¨You can't touch me! I'll find you. The authorities will track you down.¨

Hunter's eyes crinkled up in a smile. ¨Have you forgotten, Kilgard? Thanks to you, we don't exist.¨ He and the three Corrupt drew back into the shadows, fading away almost as though wiped from the scene by an artists' brush. Just before he was gone, Anna saw him wink at her and imagined she heard his whisper ¨Keep that couch warm….¨

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After he was sure the ex-Corrupt and Hunter were gone, Kilgard rose to go, but Malcom stopped him. ¨Oh no, doctor, you can sit here a little longer. A coward like you would most likely run to the authorities as quickly as possible, and they should have a little time to get clear. And I got one more question for you.¨

Kilgard sneered insolently. ¨Oh? And what's that?¨

¨Why didn't Shyleen tell me you came to our house? What did you do to her? Does she have these… these… machines in her too?¨

The doctor sniffed. ¨Isn't it obvious? Didn't you ever wonder how I was getting all those doses of nanomachines to you?¨

Malcom stopped, looking at the doctor in puzzlement. Suddenly, it was as if a curtain fell from his eyes and he could see a film being played of his life with Shyleen, featuring all those little moments that had niggled him and he didn't know why.

_¨Aaaawwww, how'd you win?¨_

_¨First time for everything, right?¨_

_¨Well, there was that one other time, when Doctor….¨_

_¨Malcom and Nara, dinner!¨ Shyleen had called over the two-way comm. Who had turned on that two-way connection in Nara's room? Why'd Shyleen cut her off in the middle of that sentence?_

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_¨Why don't you take more meals at home instead of going out all the time?¨ Kilgard had asked. ¨Less temptation to party, more family time, and there's nothing like home cooking for nourishing the body… and mind.¨_

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_¨Here, just take this toothbrush and stick it in your mouth,¨ she had instructed. ¨Do it for me?¨ Why such insistence?_

Malcom rose brusquely. ¨I gotta go.¨

Ivana saw the murderous glint in his eyes. ¨Malcom, wait! Think about your career! Don't do it.¨ He brushed past her without a word and ran smack into Gorn, who stood in his path with a hand held up. Malcom strode forward and tried to push him out of the way, managing to move Gorn about as much as if he'd been pushing against a solid meteorite wall.

¨Malcom,¨ Gorn said, holding his shoulders firmly, ¨Think about your _daughter._¨

Malcom stopped. He moved to push Gorn again, but his head fell and all the strength was drained from him. ¨Damn you,¨ he said. ¨Damn you.¨ Gorn waited, impassive.

Finally, Malcom spun away and turned once more to Doctor Kilgard. He pointed a shaking finger at the doctor. ¨You may think you can hide behind your little bodyguards and mess with other peoples' lives, but I know what the game is now. Don't ever doubt me, Kilgard. I'm the best in the arena, and I'll take down ten of your tin soldiers if I have to, and I know exactly who to call for backup. If you or that… that _bitch_ ever…. EVER come within five states of my daughter again and I find out, you will both be dead within twenty-four hours. Believe it.¨

He turned back towards the Dark Phalanx once more, his eyes burning with intensity. ¨I only got one more thing to say to you guys. Beat the Black Legion in the semifinals. If you make it to the CTF finals next month, you'll really get to see me play. I'm looking forward to it.¨ With those words Malcom was gone, Kilgard scuttling after him.

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The Dark Phalanx were left alone in the Phobos spectator lounge, standing silently, trying to digest the past week's events. It was impossible. After a few moments, Gorn sat down. ¨Hey Ivana,¨ he said, ¨I think these bars are all stocked. You wanna pour us a drink?¨

She snorted, sitting down next to him. ¨You seem to forget a little too often who the captain of this team is, Gorn.¨ Then she smiled, throwing an arm around his shoulder. ¨But I forgive you. Hey Anna, could you get us some drinks?¨

Anna laughed out loud. ¨I knew it. You two… I…. well, never mind. Sure, I'll get us some drinks. Be right back.¨

Outside the lounge, the unblinking stars wheeled slowly, the vast silence of space stretching over them like a measureless blanket.


	31. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The oddly-shaped asteroid spun slowly through space, the blackness of its surrounding sky broken in one corner by an oversized bright blue, green, and brown sphere that, from a spot on the asteroid, appeared to spin regularly around it. It was, of course, the giant space-rock that was spinning, not the planet Earth. But with its artificial gravity field that always pointed towards one side of the asteroid, the sensation one had when standing on it was of the entire universe spinning. On two sides of its carved-flat, delicately bridged metalo-lithic surface stood gigantic Composite towers, their steep pyramidal flanks lit by blue or red lights according to which team they belonged to. Facing Worlds was considered one of the most beautiful Capture the Flag arenas, a fact which didn't detract the least from its deadliness. Like Phobos Moon, it was surrounded by a bubble of air that was contained by powerful ion shields that would tear a body apart on contact. Those who fell off the asteroid had better translocate back onto it quickly, or be sucked down into quick dismemberment.

¨I tell you folks, is this ever going to be a spectacular CTF final today,¨ assured the pre-match announcer. ¨We're looking at a matchup between this year's favorite, the young and super-talented returning champions the Thunder Crash, and the same team that beat them last month in the Team Deathmatch final, the older, wiser, and more experienced Dark Phalanx. Normally, looking at these two teams, I'd have to predict an easy victory by the Thunder Crash. With the prodigious Malcom at the helm, they really have had no peers this season, and the Dark Phalanx is not a team well-known in the Capture the Flag arena. However, the Dark Phalanx has one of the deepest squads around, even lacking their comrade Farham, who as you know was recently killed by maniac fans while training. What a bummer! They showed in the TDM finals match, too, that their impeccable patience and strategy can overwhelm the flashier Thunder Crash. Well, whoever wins, I'm sure it will be an excellent spectacle for you all to enjoy, and I know I certainly will.

¨OK now, it looks like the Gladiators are being translocated onto the field, and yes, I believe they're asking to start the match with no warmup. What confidence shown by both teams! You can feel the excitement here, folks. Nobody wants to put it off any longer. The team captains and co-captains are shaking hands, an unusual display of sportsmanship, ladies and gentlemen, especially considering the score these two teams have to settle. That's what we all like to see!

¨Now they're starting the countdown. Hold onto your hats! I'll turn this line over to the arena announcer. Good luck, and have fun!¨ The line was silent for a moment, and then the countdown began, the arena announcer's deep exaggerated voice booming across the field of play, the spectator's lounge, and ten billion video monitors:

¨ ATTENTION GLADIATORS. MATCH WILL START IN THIRTY SECONDS.¨

¨TWENTY SECONDS.¨ The crowd in the spectator's lounge began to cheer.

¨TEN SECONDS. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN. SIX. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE.¨

The buzzer sounded.

All the combatants spawned.

TEH END. If you actually read this far, you're awesome. Thank you. Tell me what you thought!

Next time I'm writing a short story. 


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